Wednesday is BALLER Profile day, where we get to introduce you to some of the bookish people – authors, publishing professionals, library people, readers, and more – in our neighbourhood.

This week it’s my delight to introduce you to Philip Worré…

Winston: Hello Philip and bienvenue to the Butterflies & Aliens Library! Could you give our readers a quick introduction to yourself and your connections to the bookish world? 

Philip: Hi and thank you for having me. My name is Philip Worré, and I work in external relations at Campus Saint-Jean, the francophone campus of the University of Alberta. I am Luxembourgish but am originally from Paris, France, and moved to Edmonton about 7 years ago with my wife, kids, dog and books. Metaphorically speaking, if some babies are born in cabbage patches, I was born on a bookshelf. Or almost – both my parents were and still are avid readers and collectors so it was only natural that I should follow suit and also be a reader-slash-collector. 

Winston: Definitely tell us more about your book collecting! What are the parameters of the Philip Worré library?

Philip: With pleasure. I am fascinated by Chinese history, and by the interaction between China and the West in the late Qing dynasty. As such, my main focus is missionary publications printed in China in the 19th century – for example bibles, pamphlets or hymnals, as well as ephemera. Many missionaries flirted with the line between virtue and self-interest, juggling bibles, opium and diplomatic treaties – it sometimes feels like reading a historical thriller. 

But I also collect whatever strikes my fancy – so the rest of the collection is quite eclectic and diverse, from Robert W. Service – The Bard of the Yukon – first editions to antique illustrated bee-keeping books or pirated copies of Lady Chatterley's Lover...

Winston: So what got you started as a book collector? How long have you been building your own library?

Philip: Back in the 80s, as a young kid growing up in a bilingual family in Paris, I would spend my weekends either accompanying my mother to some of the English-language bookstores (often Brentano's, Galignani's or Shakespeare & Co.), or my father to dusty crowded auction rooms where centuries of French social and intellectual life went under the auction block. So books have always been very present in my life – I would say that I almost need them around me to feel at home.

I then started collecting more seriously as a teenager, beginning with modern first editions that I would get signed at book signings. Then, after my undergrad, I spent a year or so in Hong Kong and China working in banking – that’s when I started focusing my collection on specific areas, and that was about a quarter of a century ago.

Winston: Do you have a favourite item in your collection? Or some particularly interesting things you can share with us?

Philip: Oh boy, that is a tough question. It's like asking me to choose my favorite child – since I have two children, allow me to choose two items: a volume of the Marshman-Ghazarian bible printed in Serampore in 1822, and a volume of the Morrison bible printed in Malacca in 1823. For many antique book collectors, those dates may seem recent, but those were the first complete Chinese translations of bibles printed in Asia. What touches me is how those fragile volumes made it through so many travels, wars, rebellions, massacres and revolutions – at times, merely owning them would get you killed, so not many survived.

(I just hope they survive my dogs...)

Winston: So you and I have talked before about how book reading and book collecting are two very separate hobbies. But earlier you called yourself a reader-slash-collector. So from the reader side, any recent reads that you would recommend, or something interesting on your TBR pile?

Philip: I am currently thoroughly enjoying Jürgen Osterhammel’s Unfabling the East: The Enlightenment's Encounter with Asia. It provides a fascinating background of the impact that Asia had on some of Europe’s most notorious luminaries. And I have started re-reading George Perec’s Life: A User's Manual (La Vie mode d'emploi) – it is a perfect book for reader-slash-collectors, as it intermingles hundreds of stories in minute detail within the framework of a larger theme… a very satisfying read indeed.

(...and I won't mention all the Douglas Preston & Lincoln Child novels on my kindle.)

Winston: Ebooks are books too! But we can leave that discussion for another day. So just before we sign off, any other projects, bookish or otherwise, that you wanted to share with our readers?

Philip: Books can be hazardous to proper planning – every time I read a book, my areas of interest grow even wider, and so does my collection. But if I had a wish list of bookish projects, I would have to start with the daunting basics: cataloguing... but that's a 2125 project!

Winston: I will have software suggestions when the time comes lol. But for now thank you for sharing a bit of your bookish corner of the world, Philip!

And thank you, dear patrons, for joining us again today. Hope you’ll come back next week for our next Book of the Week and our next BALLER Profile!

But until then, happy reading!

— Winston

P.S. Had to also share this post-interview exchange… #BookloverProblems