December TBR - What Books I'm Reading This Month

I decided to stick my December reading list here for a couple of reasons.

First being accountability. I’ve been slack on the reading lately, using “busyness” as an excuse. But no one’s so busy they can’t spare 30 minutes a day to read.

I’ve also set up another SPAR challenge to help with the accountability side of things. We’ll likely start this Sunday and the challenge will go for 2 weeks. Let me know if you’d like to get in on it (could win some money).

Second reason being I read some pretty rad books (if I say so myself). The newsletter is still going strong (nearing a thousand subscribers, which is pretty cool) and you’ll get recommendations if you sign up there, but I thought I’d share the love here too.

December 2019 TBR – What I’m reading this month.

My marginalia from Plato’s Republic.

Here are the books I’m reading and enjoying this month.

Let me know what you’re reading too.

The History of World Literature (Great Course) Audiobook

I’ve been a fan of the Great Courses from the Teaching Company for several years now. The quality is consistently top notch. But this 48-part lecture series delivered by Professor Grant L. Voth and running for over 24 hours is one of my favourites.

Voth is one of the most compelling lecturers I’ve encountered and this series will motivate you, energise you, and force you to start reading all the great books he discusses. I immediately picked up The Epic of Gilgamesh thanks to his stellar second lecture.

Books discussed include:

Homer’s Iliad
Virgil’s Aeneid
Early Japanese Poetry
Dante’s Inferno
Brontë’s Wuthering Heights
Faulkner’s As I Lay Dying
And so many more (check out the full lineup)

This lecture series is quite pricey, running hundreds of dollars on the Great Courses website, but you can get the whole thing for just one Audible credit. An absolute bargain.

And if you haven’t used Audible before, that means you can get this lecture series, plus many others, or whatever you want to listen to completely FREE when you use this free trial link. You can even cancel your free trial immediately after sign-up and you’ll still get to keep your purchase.

Grab an Audible free trial here.

Classic Novels: Meeting the Challenge of Great Literature (Great Course) Audiobook

Another superb series of lectures from the Great Courses. Also available from Audible completely free when you get a free trial here.

I’m currently listening to Professor Arnold Weinstein’s lecture on Conrad’s Heart of Darkness. Having studied the book, and all of Conrad’s work, endlessly at Oxford for my second year dissertation, I’m very familiar with this book – and yet I find myself learning so many new things about one of my favourite works of literature. I can’t wait to listen to the rest of the lectures and read the books that are being discussed.

Books discussed include:

Defoe’s Moll Flanders
Melville’s Moby Dick
Dostoevsky’s The Brothers Karamazov
Woolf’s To The Lighthouse
Joyce’s Ulysses
And many more

Grab an Audible free trial here.

The Epic of Gilgamesh

This is the world’s oldest epic poem, scratched into clay tablets that date back to Mesopotamia four thousand years. It’s an epic history about a king’s battle with mortality.

I learnt about this from Professor Voth’s lecture series The History of World Literature, and ordered it before the lecture was even finished. Can’t wait to dive in.

Check out The Epic of Gilgamesh here.

Utopia by Thomas More

This is a reread. I read Utopia back in secondary school because I went to St. Thomas More High and was curious to read something by who the school was named after. I think I’ll get more out of the read this time and it builds nicely upon my reading of Plato’s Republic.

A quarter of the way in and have so far taken a bunch of notes. I’m also reading this as part of a buddy read with my brother who has already devoured it and is eager to discuss it.

Check out Utopia here.

Plato’s Republic

Almost finished this one. This is one of the foundational texts of the entire Western canon. So many other great books build upon not only the specific discussions in Plato’s Republic but the style and the way the discussions unfold.

Read Plato’s Republic so you can see and feel the power of Socratic dialogue as a teaching and philosophical tool. This book, along with Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics, has been one of the most impactful reading experiences for me this year.

Check out Plato’s Republic here.

Dan Kennedy’s No B.S. Marketing to the Affluent

It’s been a while since I specifically read anything to do with marketing, persuasion, or copywriting. But I need to brush up as I’m going to be getting into the luxury goods and service industry in 2020, so I’ll be reading a book or two in this industry each month and (most importantly) putting what I learn into practice.

I’m halfway through this book and, despite not being a huge Dan Kennedy fan, this book as definitely being worth the time investment. Particularly fascinating sections on marketing to the LGBTQ community, boomers, and women in their fifties.

Check out No B.S. Marketing to the Affluent here.

Erased by Kei Sanbe

This is a manga series. I already watched the anime years ago, but thought I’d revisit the story for a couple of reasons.

One, I need to brush up on my Japanese and I find comics an enjoyable way to do that. Two, it’s a superb story really brilliantly told.

It’s about a man who, after wrongfully being accused of murder, is able to go back to his past, back to his childhood when one of his classmates was abducted and killed, in order to unravel that mystery.