Jordanville Erratum

[Hinterlander]

So I've had the HTM for years and recently picked up the much mentioned Jordanville Prayer book.

I'm a bit disappointed in having come across typos and also in general I'm not impressed with the layout.

Has anyone else noticed this?  I've come across at least several typos and haven't even used large parts of it.

 

[Iconodule]

Yes. I emailed some of them to the Jordanville publishing arm. Hopefully they noticed.

 

[Alpha60]

Interesting; I did not realize, or had forgotten, that HTM had a prayerbook.  I have to confess, I don’t like the older version of the Jordanville book that much (it is available online; I have read it, and it made me less than interested in buying the newer one).  Jordanville publishes two volumes I much prefer, the Unabbreviated Horologion and A Psalter for Prayer.  Looking at the table of contents for the HTM book however, it looks to me like it has a much more useful set of material.

My favorite EO prayerbook is the thoroughly unconventional Praying In the Orthodox Tradition, which provides beautiful prayers for the different hours extracted from a selection of disused priest’s prayers from various ancient manuscripts, such as the Barberini Codices that contain texts of our liturgy.  This book would be of little use however to someone who was seeking to follow the traditional order of prayers and an akathist to prepare for Holy Communion (I have these prayers on my iPad in Orthodox Daily Prayers).  I should probably get an HTM prayerbook however.  It would be nice, and inexpensive, to acquire a library of these books, and write a comparison of their contents so people could figure out which prayer book was right for them.  I am hoping my Marfan’s does not reach the point where I can’t handle printed books (so far it is mainly receipts and napkins).

 

[Agabus]

I'm a bit disappointed in having come across typos and also in general I'm not impressed with the layout.

This is a complaint I have with nearly every Orthodox service/liturgical/paraliturgical book in English.

I'm assuming that, because of the somewhat limited resources, not enough people are reviewing the galleys before sending it to the printer, or everyone doing the reviews is too close to the text to catch the errors...And since there aren't that many Orthodox in the U.S., and even fewer of them are buying said books, reprintings even for best sellers aren't really an option.

As for layout, it wouldn't kill to hire a graphic designer, but I'm sure Monk Vasilly's abilities to open InDesign and Illustrator are good enough, right?

 

[Porter ODoran]

I suspect it's insular pride that simply fails to make room for the concept that copy editing, book design, and proofreading professionals are critical parts of any publishing project.

 

[CarolS]

I suspect it's insular pride that simply fails to make room for the concept that copy editing, book design, and proofreading professionals are critical parts of any publishing project.

That's harsh criticism.  Most of the English service books put out by the monastery at Jordanville in past years were undertaken single-handedly by R-monk Laurence at a time when, frankly, English was not much of a priority in ROCOR.  Many of us, would welcome a truly professional publishing of some of these books.

 

[Hinterlander]

Interesting; I did not realize, or had forgotten, that HTM had a prayerbook.  I have to confess, I don’t like the older version of the Jordanville book that much (it is available online; I have read it, and it made me less than interested in buying the newer one).  Jordanville publishes two volumes I much prefer, the Unabbreviated Horologion and A Psalter for Prayer.  Looking at the table of contents for the HTM book however, it looks to me like it has a much more useful set of material.

My favorite EO prayerbook is the thoroughly unconventional Praying In the Orthodox Tradition, which provides beautiful prayers for the different hours extracted from a selection of disused priest’s prayers from various ancient manuscripts, such as the Barberini Codices that contain texts of our liturgy.  This book would be of little use however to someone who was seeking to follow the traditional order of prayers and an akathist to prepare for Holy Communion (I have these prayers on my iPad in Orthodox Daily Prayers).  I should probably get an HTM prayerbook however.  It would be nice, and inexpensive, to acquire a library of these books, and write a comparison of their contents so people could figure out which prayer book was right for them.  I am hoping my Marfan’s does not reach the point where I can’t handle printed books (so far it is mainly receipts and napkins).

Do you have any of HTM's publications?  The binding, paper, layout, etc are all superb.  These are books that you will treasure.  I like the contents of the OCA prayer book but it is falling to pieces.  I taped paperboard to the cover to try and make it last a bit longer.