6
My Inner Circle

Some of my best ideas are born of envy. Not the green-with-it sort, but that brand with which many readers are familiar: book envy. Or more specifically in this instance, bookshelf envy.

While traveling, we once stayed in the apartment of an author friend, a little-used second home furnished just enough to feel homelike. Her full-time residence is predictably packed with books, but this apartment held only a few modest bookshelves. One held her current reads, another her lifetime favorite titles, but one shelf held a motley assortment of books I couldn’t figure out. In addition to her usual jumble of literary fiction, mysteries, and classics, this shelf held her lesser-read genres—poetry and science fiction, memoir and self-help—as well as trail guides, neighborhood histories, and recipe collections from small Illinois towns. I couldn’t decode the pattern, and I was left in suspense until the author herself provided the key: she calls it her friends and family shelf.

This shelf initially held only books written by true friends, the dozen or two fellow authors she personally knew, and knew well. Because friends and family sounded much nicer to her ear, she tacked on the family—and reassured herself that some of her friends were dear enough to feel like kin. Since then, her son has written a slim volume of poetry that now graces her shelf, making the moniker both emotionally and technically accurate.

That good idea was begging to be stolen, and I lost no time in doing so, reorganizing my bookshelves (again), emptying a shelf for the purpose of filling it up again with books by friends and wish-they-were family. Not knowing as many authors as my friend, I was forced to be more generous with my definition. I waver on the exact standards: Did someone I meet once at a conference count, or perhaps at a bookstore signing, or that I met in the bathroom at a publishing conference, or exchanged an email with once or twice? (The answer to all these, at one time or another, has been yes.)

My shelf holds books by people I know from Twitter, or whom I’ve met a few times in person, having shared dinner or drinks once upon a time. It holds books by actual friends, and those numbers—of books and of friends—increase every year. I’ve shelved books by old friends who became authors and by newer friends I met because they write books. The shelf holds books by people I talk to on the phone and text when I think a deadline might kill me, friends whose funerals I would hop on a plane to attend should it come to pass that they are killed by one of their own dreaded deadlines. It holds books by friends who’ve seen my home in all its dirty-dishes, cluttered-counters glory, and in whose homes I’ve seen the same, and by those whose children I know and who know mine.

Then the shelf holds books by those authors with whom I would very much like to be friends, writers whose works have shaped me—who, it seems, get me, but will never sit at my table or scratch my dog’s ears or use my dirty bathroom. They feel like kindred spirits despite the fact that I’ve never met them—and never will outside the pages of their work because they lived a hundred years ago. (I’d like to put Jane Austen on this shelf, but I can’t bring myself to do it. Instead she remains safely ensconced with my favorites, keeping company with Wendell Berry and Marilynne Robinson and Wallace Stegner—authors with whom I feel compelled to be on my best behavior, who intimidate me too much to feel like friends.)

Some authors I shelve here because we’re on a first-name basis, though they would be surprised at this intimacy. I’ve called Witold Rybczynski by his first name for years simply because I fear I’d butcher the pronunciation of his last name. Dallas Willard is Dallas to me—not because Willard isn’t easy enough to pronounce, but after talking about him so often, for so long, it seemed silly to keep calling him by his full name, and Willard didn’t feel right. Madeleine L’Engle is Madeleine to me, because I feel like we understand each other. I refer to these authors personally and often, and putting them on the friends and family shelf seems fair, even if the authors themselves don’t know I exist.

If I’m feeling generous, or my shelf is looking a little empty, I may further blur the line between fiction and reality, shelving titles here because I feel they could be friends. I’m not talking about the author this time, but the characters themselves: Anne Shirley, Jo March, Veronica Mars . . . I could go on, but you’re already questioning my judgment, I’m sure.

When I started my friends and family shelf, I felt a little silly; I had to be embarrassingly creative with my definition to fill it, in the beginning. Do my family members write books? (No.) Do I have enough writerly friends to fill a bookshelf? (No.)

Envy is a deadly sin, but bookshelf envy has proven to be a source of inspiration. Reorganizing my shelves has changed the way I think about books and the people who write them. Here on these shelves I’ve gathered my own inner circle: the books I feel closest to, the people who matter to me.