HighBrow Book Club!?
Hi friends,
Greetings from the Northshore!
I returned home for the weekend to celebrate Christmas with the family. I am grateful to have a family that I want to return home to. Some of the conversations that surfaced throughout the week revolved around others dreading celebrating the holidays with their families or expressing that they don’t have families to celebrate with.
My heart goes out to all those who are without a family this Christmas. There is light to be found in the darkest places.
“Reflect upon your present blessings—of which every man has many—not on your past misfortunes, of which all men have some.” - Dickens, A Christmas Carol
This line jumped out to me this past week and it has been my reponse to these types of conversations. I am well aware that I come off as pretentious and snobby, but I think it is worth bringing to light. It has helped me in my life and I hope it may help you in yours. That’s all.
In this week’s newsletter, I will share updates about the book club, my ultimate exercise program for 2023, an annual review template, a reading database I’ve been working on, and what I am reading this holiday weekend.
Cheers and Merry Christmas!
1. Introducing the HighBrow Book Club
Do you ever feel lonely and just want to be a part of something. Maybe even something to fight for?
Do you seek truth or aspire to live in it?
Do you ever just want to get down to the nitty gritty.
What does it mean to be human in this confusing world today?
It’s time to start building bridges, maybe even a garden.
It’s time to find common ground.
It’s time to get back to basics.
This is the Highbrow Book Club. a community of thinkers who want to form tackle high brow literature…together.
There will be other guests that will join me in the discussions. These guests have backgrounds in philosophy, theology, psychotherapy, medicine, and of course a hobby of reading highbrow literature.
We do not have prestigious degrees in english literature or rocket science; however, although it is helpful to have expertise in the field, it is not necessary. We can still think clearly and bring our own experiences to the table…and so can you. And we want to hear it.
The podcast will release episodes discussing the assigned readings of the book that will introduce you to the greatest novels, plays, poetry, philosophy, theology, and many more that has ever been written. We will open our minds to thinkers such as Tolstoy, Dostoevsky, Jane Austen, Proust, Emily Brontë, Shakespeare, Dickens, and Virginia Woolf, just to name a few.
These books are timeless and alive. They will expand your consciousness from your mind and breathe life into your bones.
These books are about you and me. To understand the patterns of the heart, mind, and soul of these books is to better understand the patterns of your own perceptions.
The great books are a call to adventure. With any adventure comes challenges.
My hope is that this project will warmly welcome anyone who craves to embark on the journey of summiting the mountains of ideas that these books embody while having a friend to lean on.
Here is the official schedule for 2023.
January - February: Tolstoy's Anna Karenina, Shakespeare’s Sonnets
March - April: Dostoyevsky's Crime and Punishment, Short Stories from Chekkhov & Turgenev
May: Austen's Persuasion, Poetry from Shelley & Blake
June - August: Cervantes' Don Quixote, Poetry from John Keats
September: Emily Brontë’s Wuthering Heights
October: Bram Stoker’s Dracula, J. Meade Falkner’s The Lost Stradivarius
November - December: Dickens’ Great Expectations & A Christmas Carol
I created a separate page for this book club. If you are interested in joining, click this link here :)
2. Exercise Program for 2023
I am working on an insane workout program for 2023. It will get you jacked and running a marathon by the end of the year. It is not finished yet, but here is what my macrostructure is going to be looking like.
I designed the program based off of Dr. Attia’s macrostructure that addresses strength, stability, mobility, flexibility, and cardiorespiratory fitness. Check out the full post here.
3. Annual Review Template
Some friends have been asking me for this, so here you go. An annual review is a check-in you do with yourself at the end of the year. It is a system to reflect on where you have been and where you want to go. It properly orients you in the present while balancing gratitude and growth.
Ali Abdaal has my favorite annual review template. I curated a couple of his other templates into one that consists of 3 main sections:
Reflect
Plan
Execute
Here is a little peek into the 1st section.
This is my first time doing an annual review and it has been a game changer. If anything, it has been an excuse to sit down and reflect about the experiences that resonated with me and the wonderful people I was lucky to meet and befriend :)
Check it out here.
4. Reading Database
I am working on the ultimate lifetime reading list. I don’t plan on reading all of these books, but collecting all of the books I would want to read in a database is very helpful when I am deciding on my next read.
Here is what it looks like.
At the current moment I have 128 books uploaded into it. It is not complete yet, but I am stoked about it thus far. I will end up revising (taking books out, adding books in, etc.) it in due time.
Check it out here.
5. The Perfect Read for Christmas
A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens has been a delight to read this this Christmas season. I feel like I am traveling back in time to my childhood self reading this little book. I have only read the first couple of Staves, but I am looking forward to reading the rest of this ghost story over the weekend. I want to light a fire somewhere and read it. That would be fitting.
Quote of the Week
“I will honour Christmas in my heart, and try to keep it all the year. I will live in the Past, the Present, and the Future. The Spirits of all Three shall strive within me. I will not shut out the lessons that they teach!” - Dickens, A Christmas Carol
Song of the Week
Merry Christmas,
Cameron
I want the world to know how helpful these resources are. Sharing now! :)