Here at Culture Vulture we don't care about whether you've given up smoking, taken up the XYZ diet or joined up to a gym. No, we have weightier matters on our minds.
Inspired by Kathryn Hughes's decision to detox her reading habits, we're eschewing such corporeal concerns in favour of more cerebral ambitions.
So forget Allen Carr or 'Dr' Gillian McKeith and think lofty. Is 2006 the year you'll finally read War and Peace? Do you plan to forgo the seductions of the three-for-two table and support your local independent bookshop? Or even your library? Is it time to stop turning down the corners of pages? Develop a marginalia habit?
From the grandscale (Proust. A La Recherche du Temps Perdu. It's time. You know it.) to the frankly anal (will this be the year you finally crack and sort your bookshelves by publisher?) we want to know your New Year Reading Resolutions.
To get you going, here are ours:
Vulture Blogofile, Sean Clarke: I'm skint, so one of mine is reading all the books on my shelf before buying any more. But countering that is a general resolution not to persevere ... if it's not enjoyable, I'm giving up on it. Otherwise: mean to read Anthony Burgess's Nothing Like the Sun, more (erm, some) Chaucer, and maybe the Compleat Angler, subject to the above proviso.
GU Books editor, Sarah Crown: This year, I hereby resolve:
a) Not to see being mildly hungover/ill as an excuse - nay, a mandate - to abandon all sensible, worthy literature in favour of comfort books.
b) Not to be seduced by review copies that land on my desk and take them home thinking, yes, yes, I'll definitely read this at some point, only to have to admit to myself six months later that there is no way on God's green earth I'll ever be able to manage to read all the books I've brought home unless I take a further six months off work.
c) To make a note of the books I've read and enjoyed so that I don't look like a slack-jawed idiot every time I'm confronted with the question "So what good books have you read this year, then?"
GU Arts editor, Andrew Dickson Having discovered that I do, in fact, quite like stories and what happens in them, it's the year of the novel for me: all those fat 19th century leviathans I've been putting off for ages. Two things follow: (a) I will have to make time for reading, rather than letting it smooth over, Polyfilla-like, the awkward gaps in my life; (b) I will have to reinforce my bookshelves and work on my upper body strength.
Arts reporter, Lindesay Irvine Reading all the books I buy would be a good idea, as would spending more of the time I would normally be in front of the telly with a book. In terms of reading ambitions, I would like at some point to have a proper read of Heidgegger and Hegel, but I think that's going to mean taking courses.
As for me, I plan to work on my attention span so that I finish at least some of the books that I start, read more foreign fiction and fill in some embarrassing gaps (tips on the best Dickens to start with?)
So that's us… Over to you.
