His and Hers

[except books. source]

When Scott and I moved in together eight years ago there were a fair amount of arrangements and compromises to be made. We negotiated the artwork for the walls, decided how we'd handle things financially (separately... we'd handle things separately), and, the big one- how the books would be arranged.

Given the fact that both of us were English majors in college (it's how we met! In a discussion section for Detective Fiction at UCLA), and still avid readers, we had hundreds of books to deal with in our one-bedroom apartment. There were so many questions: Would we combine our books into one collection? Keep them separate? What would we do with duplicates? Who would decide the system of organization? Would future books be seen as part of the overall collection, or owned by one of us?

Now I understand that in the whole scheme of life, these really aren't important questions. But we were young and unmarried- who knew if it was going to work? If we split up who would get custody of the books that were "ours"? If we got rid of duplicate copies who would get the remaining book? In the end, we decided to combine our collections, taking duplicates out and saving them in an alternate location (aka a closet), just in case. I, of course, being the order-instiller (doesn't that sound so much better than "control freak"?) that I am, decided on the actual organization. 

Fast-forward to present day, where we've been married almost six years and have enough space for lots of books, and I'm still uptight on the joint book situation. What's mine is mine and what's his is his. We've gone "halfsies" on maybe two or three book ever, and I can tell you with absolute certainty what books are mine and what books are his. The biggest problem, though, and the reason that catalyzed this post, is that I generally won't read his books. It's not that he won't let me- he's incredibly generous and a lot more into sharing that I am (just ask him about my orange juice system...)- I just feel like I should read all of my own books first. There's two problems with that. The first: he gets books that I want to read. The second: I will never be done with all of my books. My TBR pile will never be eliminated. Therefore, using all that "if than" logic proof stuff from math or philosophy or whatever, I will never get to read certain books that I want to, because I will never finish my own, since I add anywhere from twelve to three hundred (not really) a year.

There have been a few exceptions, all for book club, over the years, The Selected Works of TS Spivet, Catch-22, and The Goldfinch coming to mind. But if there isn't an outside purpose, it ain't happening. 

Back to the catalyst. Last Tuesday David Mitchell's newest, The Bone Clocks, came out and he ordered it, using his Amazon points. I really want to read it- Mitchell is awesome and I need things to look forward to. Trying to work my "halfsies loophole," I offered to pay for half so that I'd allow myself to read it. He, knowing this is one of my quirks, refused, telling me that I could just read it when he's done. But that's not how it works. I have nearly fifty books of my own to get through first, I can't let one that's not mine "cut." 

I'm stuck.

And I may have some sort of psychological disorder.