We see eye-to-eye more often than not, so conflict over books seems a little silly to me.Īnjin brings up an interesting point regarding books that we still consider our own. The only weirdness was dealing with multiple copies of the same book, but we figured out how to deal with that pretty quick. Although I still think of certain books as mine, it's just a vestige of old favorites being added to our communal shelves. It felt like a natural extension of our moving in together.

There was a finality in the process that was both exciting and a tad bit frightening.Īnjin's own recollection is similar: I don't remember any conflict. The hard part for me was taking that step at all. Neither of us was nearly as particular as Anne and George had been. My own recollection is a bit fuzzy because, frankly, we did not really have any disagreements about which books should go where. I asked my husband if he remembered the moment in our lives when we decided to marry our libraries (and our CD collections-which I think was somehow harder, although I'm not sure why). It proved to be a difficult task because they each had their own organizational preferences, which did not always coincide. 'Marrying Libraries' - Anne and her husband waited five years into their marriage before finally taking the plunge to merge their individual libraries. I hope that you will share some of your own experiences and thoughts as well! Because of the length of my thoughts, my comments will be split into multiple parts.

I keep a trusty notebook handy when I read, and the following are my notes as I read each essay. While I could not relate to every topic she raised in her book, I did enjoy reading about her experiences as a common reader. Anne's essays are full of humor and sentimentality.

Confessions of a common reader