Thursdays - Pleasantly Disturbed

It’s another stupendous edition of Pleasantly Disturbed Thursdays, with our leader Duane Scott in command and leading the way through the darkness.

Speaking of Duane, he’s getting married Nov. 6. You might want to tell him congratulations at his blog or on Twitter -- @duane_scott .

I’ve been reading David Platt’s Radical: Taking Back Your Faith from the American Dream. Add that to Michael Spencer’s Mere Churchianity, and I’m going to turn into a bomb thrower.

I didn’t post anything about when it was announced a couple of weeks ago, but I think the Nobel Committee did a remarkable thing when it gave the prize for literature to Peruvian writer Mario Vargas Llosa. I was introduced to his writing in 1986 when I took a seminar on the Latin American Novel for my master’s program.

The first of his novels I read was The War of the End of World, which was based on a true story. And then The Green House, and Aunt Julia and the Scriptwriter. I did my seminar paper and presentation on Conversations in the Cathedral, which is simultaneously one of the most difficult and rewarding novels I’ve ever read. (William Faulkner is easy compared to that book – I thought I was going to lose my mind reading it until I realized how it was structured, and then I started it over again.) I’ve read virtually everything he’s written.

I’ve been mostly off the grid (i.e. Twitter and Facebook) this week, and there’s a reason, which I’ll explain in a few days. Because of that, I'll have a shorter edition of Saturday Good Reads this weekend.

And, last, but not least, what everyone’s been waiting for – a photo of Cameron Young and his grandfather. (I’m the one on the right.)