As we struggle to stick to our new year’s resolutions, several books reflect on the way we live, and how we might improve it – physically, psychologically and practically. In Happy Ever After (January, Allen Lane, 240 pp, £20) Paul Dolan, professor of behavioural science at the LSE, helps us to explode the myths of a perfect life and find our own routes to happiness. In Lab Rats (January, Atlantic, 272 pp, £16.99) Dan Lyons looks at the misery of the modern workplace for the expanding numbers of middle-class serfs, and asks how dignity can be restored. The Alcohol Experiment (December, HQ, 256 pp, £12.99) is a 30-day booze-free ­programme devised by Annie Grace to help you rethink your relationship to alcohol. Our home news editor, Liz Dodd, will be following this, and will let you know how she gets on.

Moving towards Lent, a good crop of books – many of them published late last year – help prepare us, spiritually, for Easter. An Ocean of Light by Martin Laird (January, OUP, 248 pp, £12.99) is described as a practical guide for those with “maturing contemplative practices”. Jane Williams’ The Merciful Humility of God (December, Bloomsbury, 160 pp, £9.99) dwells on St Augustine’s insight that it is only the merciful humility of God that can penetrate our pride. Reconciliation by Murthuraj Swamy (December, SPCK, 192 pp, £9.99) is the Archbishop of Canterbury’s Lent Book for 2019. In The Way of Ignatius: A Prayer Journey Through Lent (November, SPCK, 108 pp, £8.99), Gemma Simmonds CJ weaves together the struggles and insights of Ignatius Loyola and Mary Ward to invite ­readers into their own Ignatian adventure.