Everybody Needs an Ego Bookshelf

Or some version of that!

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So last week I had a little office clean-out…

And I tidied up my ego bookshelf. It looks like this now.

It’s probably obvious to you what this is: it’s a copy of every book I’ve ever written, in every edition and foreign translation. Plus a lot of extra copies of my most recent books, The Tree Collectors and the tenth anniversary edition of The Drunken Botanist. Authors get a certain number of free copies of their books from the publisher—usually twenty or thirty—and mine to go to family, friends, and people who helped out with the book in one way or another.

Having all these copies arranged on a shelf like this makes my life’s work look much more substantial than it would if I only had one copy of each book. There are fourteen in all, and fourteen books on a shelf doesn’t make much of a statement, even in a small room.

But this? This really looks like something.

When we moved into our place in Portland, I knew immediately that I wanted my ego bookshelf to sit at the top of the stairs, so that I’d see it every time I walked in the room. It would remind me why I have this room, and what, exactly, it is that I do in here.

Here’s the view from my morning commute:

Do you see what I mean? It makes an impact.

This got me thinking that we all need ego bookshelves—even if they’re not bookshelves.

One of the people I interviewed for The Tree Collectors was Linda Miles. She lives in Netherton, England. When she and her husband were young and just starting out, they bought a plot of rural land and started planting trees—but not just any trees.

They planted a tree every time a child was born. They planted trees to mark graduations and anniversaries. When a couple got married, they’d invite the couple to plant a tree on their land to celebrate their wedding. They planted trees to remember people who died.

Here’s the portrait of Linda and her grandson that I drew for the book:

What I realized, as I talked to her, was that all the people associated with these trees were now connected to each other through the trees. They would come back to visit their trees, and to visit each other.

Every tree in her landscape represented a person she loved. An occasion to be remembered. Grief and joy and accomplishments and special moments of all kinds. They were all there—in the trees.

Can you imagine walking among a landscape of mature trees that are a living, breathing monument to a life well lived? To your life?

I can hardly imagine it myself. I have to be honest and say that talking to Linda made me question all my life choices. Why hadn’t I spent my life planting trees to honor everyone who mattered to me—everyone who made life worth living?

Here’s my illustration of Linda’s landscape. She said that she likes each tree to be set apart from the other, so that they can each grow to their full potential—their natural, uninhibited size and shape. (I’m not crying, you’re crying!)

Okay, so we can’t all plant a personal arboretum to represent our life’s work. But what about…

This brings me to my question for you. Is there a place in your house where you assemble something—books, sketchbooks, framed photos, diplomas, trophies, travel souvenirs—anything at all that shows off your accomplishments? That shows off your life’s work, the things you’ve done that you’re most proud of?

I feel like we all need something like this. I used to do this exercise every New Year’s where I’d sit down and write out all my accomplishments from the previous year. These were mostly work-related, and I wrote them down because, as a freelancer, it was often hard for me to know whether I was actually getting anything done. A year would go by—maybe a year when I was working on a book, but did not yet have a book to show for my efforts—and sometimes it felt like time was just drifting away. The list helped with that.

Now I feel like I need a list like that every day! What exactly did I accomplish—for myself or for someone else—today? I should probably make a note of it! (This, of course, is very similar to the idea of making a note of what you’re grateful for. Too easy to let those things slip by unnoticed!)

Here’s another little ego shelf in my office. This time it’s sketchbooks.

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I’m super interested in this, and I’d like to know if you have your own version of an ego bookshelf!

You’re welcome to just post a comment here, about this or anything else:

But I’m also going to open up a chat just for this topic. The nice thing about the chat function is that we can share PICTURES! So if you want to join the chat, and post a picture of the place in your house where you keep stuff like this, I think it would be really fun to share those, and maybe to explore all the many variations an idea like this can take.

Here’s a link to the chat. Hope to see you there.

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The Bit at the End

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