Join The Underlines // The Best Of What I Read

A batch of the best highlights from what Joshua's read, .

All we have to do when reading Bleak House is to relax and let our spines take over. Although we read with our minds, the seat of artistic delight is between the shoulder blades. That little shiver behind is quite certainly the highest form of emotion that humanity has attained when evolving pure art and pure science. Let us worship the spine and its tingle. Let us be proud of our being vertebrates, for we are vertebrates tipped at the head with a divine flame. The brain only continues the spine: the wick really goes through the whole length of the candle. If we are not capable of enjoying that shiver, if we cannot enjoy literature, then let us give up the whole thing and concentrate on our comics, our videos, our books-of-the-week. But I think Dickens will prove stronger. (Vladimir Nabokov, Lectures on Literature [New York: Harvest, 2002], 56)

Desiring the Kingdom

James K. A. Smith

Friends and partners in love with the people of God, we must repent for treating others so much like fuel for our machines. We must confess that we have often looked over the weak, and made demands of the strong just so we could accomplish what we thought was the great thing. There is more to the kingdom of God than just delivering messages and conducting meetings.

Orphan Slave Son

Ben Pasley

The secret of all life-giving relations with others lies in the fact that the primary “other” for a human being, whether he wants it or not, is always God.

Revolution of Character

Dallas Willard

...catch up on these, and many more highlights