My Interview in Mars Hill Audio Journal, Volume 90

Posted by J. Mark Bertrand
on Thursday, May 01, 2008
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Volume 90 of the Mars Hill Audio Journal is out now, and it leads with the interview I did with host Ken Myers about the state of the worldview discourse. This edition is packed with an additional 75 minutes or so of discussion on the National Endowment for the Arts study on contemporary reading habits (or lack thereof), so it's well worth hearing. Here's a taste of what's on offer:

Guests on the current issue (Volume 90) include: J. Mark Bertrand on how the language of "worldviews" can mean something richer than it often does; Michael P. Schutt on how the day-to-day practice of Christian lawyers can reflect a Christian view of the nature of law; Michael Ward on how C. S. Lewis's Chronicles of Narnia were shaped by medieval cosmological beliefs about the seven planets; Dana Gioia on the disturbing trends in the reading (non)habits of Americans; Makoto Fujimura on reading, painting, and attending to the world; Gregory Edward Reynolds on lessons about reading from the study of media ecology; Catherine Prescott, on why portrait painters often depict their subjects with books in their hands; and Eugene Peterson on the place of reading in the spiritual lives of Christians.

If you don't subscribe to Mars Hill Audio Journal, you should. It's essential listening, and I'm honored after many years of subscribing to find myself on the other end of the microphone -- and in such august company.

A Long Tour of the Shelves

Posted by J. Mark Bertrand
on Tuesday, April 29, 2008
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I've gone book-crazy recently. Camera in hand, I snapped photos of one shelf after another, and as a result I can share a pretty good cross section of my antiquarian titles. Not everything -- some of the photos didn't come out -- but enough to give you an idea of what I like.



The Pater set (above) was a gift from Laurie, one of the first sets I ever received. The two-volume set of Montaigne's essays in French is quite nice. If I'd snapped a photo of the boards, you'd be impressed by the vivid marbling.



Sartor Resartus (above, middle) was kind of a favorite of mine, but the real goodies are on the far right, sword books by Roworth, Castle and Hutton.



Not everybody loves the Folio Society, but I think their two six-volume, slipcased sets of Graham Greene's serious novels and his "entertainments" (above) are brilliant.



Since I mentioned Sabatini and Weyman recently, I figured I should include some of their other works -- Count Hannibal and Venetian Masque, respectively. Also a couple of editions of my favorite Arthur Conan Doyle stories -- not about Sherlock Holmes, but the quixotic, idiotic Brigadier Gerard.



A nineteenth century set of Thackeray's works (above), set in tiny type with copious illustrations.



Some true favorites above, including a beautiful two-volume edition of Pater's Marius the Epicurean, Carlyle's The French Revolution (my first ever antiquarian score), and Baudelaire in French, complete with some pretty bizarre plates.



The two-volume set of Rossetti's works (above) is majestic in person. The volumes on the right comprise The Lives of the English Saints.



Guy Mannering and The Pirate (above, right) are early editions of Scott acquired at one of the London shops that sells books by the foot to decorators.



Last but not least, what I think of as the "gold books," an assortment of volumes I picked up more for the binding than the content, with the exception of the Georges Sand novel in the middle.

The Filofax

Posted by J. Mark Bertrand
on Friday, April 25, 2008
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Anachronism isn't my middle name, but it might as well be sometimes. Leave it to me to develop a love for the Filofax in an age of PDAs. To be precise, I fell in love in the mid-90s, at the twilight of paper, when a planner still made more sense than a plug-in appointment book. And I've succombed, like most people, to the convenience of computer calendars, relying on my iPhone in most cases. But there's something about the Filofax I can't get over. Call it nostalgia.



I discovered a blog recently devoted to the love of Filofaxes -- dubbed Philofaxy, cleverly enough. It's worth checking out if you, too, have the bug, or would like to contract it. Where paper planners are concerned, I could do without Franklin Covey and Daytimer, but I'm a sucker for the classic Filofax and for pocket datebooks like the Moleskine one. I don't use them as religiously as I once did, but you'd be surprised how often they come in handy, even in a world where the computer is king.

The School of Fencing

Posted by J. Mark Bertrand
on Wednesday, April 23, 2008
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An interest in swords is something a man doesn't have to account for. No need to explain when the topic first came to his attention, why it caught his imagination, and so on. Of course it caught the imagination -- swords are sharp metal things you poke people with. Why wouldn't they? For as long as I can remember, I've been reading about them, daydreaming about them, and occasionally brandishing them. In some ways, I took it farther than most, which is how I ended up in Ewart Oakeshott's kitchen, eyeing the light cavalry sabre on the mantle. Which is how I ended up with a sabre of my own, wrapped in brown paper, which I toted around London like a character from Highlander. Here it is:



Of course, I took an interest in the literature of swordplay, too, which happens to be a rich one, with fencing manuals going back to the Middle Ages. Perhaps the most famous is Domenico Angelo's The School of Fencing, a lavishly illustrated instruction book from the mid-eighteenth century, by which time the art had been very refined, but had not quite disappeared from the streets. I included a photo from Roworth's much cruder handbook last time, but I figured I should share a few plates from Angelo (or, to be precise, an excellent reprint of Angelo from the 1960s).













Growing up, we had a reproduction of Gainsborough's The Blue Boy on the wall. Who didn't? How much more interesting he would have been to my childhood self if, like the fellow in blue featured in Plate 31 (the fourth from the top), he'd been running his sword through the body of another fellow.

More Books for Swashbucklers

Posted by J. Mark Bertrand
on Monday, April 14, 2008
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Last week's piece on Restoring Dumas is only half the story. Some people read Dumas early, but I wasn't one of them. To be honest, Richard Lester's early 70s adaptation of The Three Musketeers with Michael York in the lead put me off -- in spite of my great affection for all manifestations of Oliver Reed. So I got to the master by a circuitous route, via two of his best-known acolytes. The first was Rafael Sabatini, the author of Scaramouche. One of my most prized antiquarian sets is a complete edition of Sabatini's work, still respelendent in original bindings (complete with little ships, in honor of Captain Blood).



Unfortunately, the set came out during Sabatini's lifetime, so some of his best books -- like Master-at-Arms -- aren't included. If you like Dumas, you owe it to yourself to read Sabatini, who does much greater justice to the swordplay and scene-setting. When Sabatini traced his influences back to Dumas, there was a significant figure in between, a writer largely forgotten today: Stanley Weyman.



A Gentleman of France is probably his best, though I'm also partial to Count Hannibal (not shown), which is set after the St. Bartholomew's Day massacre. The swashbuckling adventure genre has all but dried up today, but it flourished once, and the quality of the books is impressive. Of the three writers, I think I'd rate Weyman the best (though Dumas was a master storyteller and no doubt deserves to shine much brighter). I haven't found a leather-bound edition of Weyman and don't know that there ever was one, but the hardbacks tend to be beautifully produced, particularly the early ones.

Of course, if you read too much about swashbuckling, you'll get the itch for a little cut and thrust yourself, in which case Roworth's The Art of Defense comes in handy. To give the full title, The Art of Defense on Foot with the Broad Sword and Sabre. This is the 1798 edition, complete with the fold-out plates. It isn't nearly as elaborate as Domenico Angelo's The School of Fencing, or as down-and-dirty as Donald McBane's Expert Sword-Man's Companion, but Roworth gets the job done in style.



This particular copy is bound in red calfskin and black shagreen (click here for a look), so it's rather unique.

Restoring Dumas

Posted by J. Mark Bertrand
on Thursday, April 10, 2008
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It's no secret I love old books. Years ago, I used to drop in on the Detering Book Gallery every weekend, where I'd gain admittance to the upper room where antiquarian volumes were stored. With NPR playing in the background, I browsed for hours, and usually went home with a book or two. Once in London, we found a bookshop selling antiquarian titles to decorators by the foot, so I bought a foot of books (which the seller was kind enough to allow me to choose by title, though most clients went by color).

But I've only taken on one restoration project. In the days before eBay, I found a classified listing an almost-complete, numbered set of the English edition of the works of Alexandre Dumas. The seller wants about $200, because the covers were in terrible condition. I bought them expecting trashed reading copies (or worse). Instead, they were beautiful. All the original plates were intact, and the marbled boards were nearly so. All that needed replacement was the three-quarter calf binding.



The cost of restoration was more than ten times the cost of acquiring the set (which might explain why I've never done it again), but I have no regrets. Most of these books are either out of print or quite difficult to find, and each is a delight to read.

I remember returning to grad school one semester, and Dan Stern asking everyone to list what they'd read over the summer. It was an impressive mix of obscure, high-brow literature until my turn came. I'd just finished Le Chevalier de Maison-Rouge (#29, pictured above), but was a little ashamed to admit it. I owned up, and made a little apology on behalf of antiquarian reading. I don't know whether anyone was convinced -- and you know what? I didn't care. I had to get back to my reading.

A Friend in The Chronicle

Posted by J. Mark Bertrand
on Thursday, April 03, 2008
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Since I'm far from Houston, I don't read the Chronicle anymore, but I found out that a longtime friend is featured in the Local Bands section of today's edition.

"In the land of Dixie" by Joey Guerra

Dixie Trahan sings with "a delicate, soulful voice, which has rightfully earned comparisons to Alison Krauss," but since I heard Dixie long before I knew who Alison Krauss was, I tend to invert the comparison. (You can listen for yourself by sampling tracks from her album at DixieTrahan.com.) I've known her since high school, where her husband and I were best buds (though he was much cooler than me), so it's great to see her talent enjoying the kind of attention it deserves. May it lead to much, much more!