I have a stack of unstarted and unfinished books. Using a gift certificate from my dad, I just bought three more. I have another stack of New Yorker magazines, stretching embarrassingly far back into 2006. So, here are two of my goals for the upcoming year: read at least one piece in each of those magazines, and read all of these books:

The Golden Compass, Philip Pullman
The History of Love, Nicole Krauss
In Cold Blood, Truman Capote
Stories, Anton Chekov
Complete Short Stories, Graham Greene
The Fortress of Solitude, Jonathan Lethem
The Intuitionist, Colson Whitehead
The Best American Nonrequired Reading, 2004, Eggers (ed.)
Underworld, Don DeLillo
Bel Canto, Ann Patchet
Light in August, William Faulkner
The Devil in White City, Erik Larson
Atonement, Ian McEwan

Oh and I guess it goes without saying that my other goal is to finish my novel, or to at least make long strides toward finishing it.

Any other goals regarding conception and shedding eight pounds of fat are wastes of time.