The time comes in every relationship to take a leap of faith and bind yourselves together in a way that cannot be undone without tremendous difficulty. No, I’m not talking about marriage and divorce. I’m talking about combining your book collections.

When my husband and I moved in, we brought a few suitcases filled with clothes (okay, I brought more than a few) and books. Lots and lots of books. Rather than keeping our books separate, we decided to join them, just as we had ourselves, and organized them into a color-coded library. (Gorgeous, yes. Functional, TBD.)

Finding someone who shares your passions is the first step towards a lifetime together. In our case, books were the glue that bound us. Now, our books are living happily ever after. With a little luck, so will we.