積ん読

Tsundoku is the Japanese word to describe buying books and letting them pile up unread on shelves, floors, and nightstands.

What is Tsundoku?

Just buying books and piling them up can be effective! (1) Buy books (2) Stack books (3) Brain cells are activated by receiving radio waves from piled books that cannot be explained by modern science!

Tsundoku" or "piled reading " is a term used to describe the state in which books you have acquired are left piled up at home without being read. There are similar words such asbibliophilia andbibliomania, but there is no word other than Japanese for the same concept or habit, and it became popular in the UK and other countries in the 2010s as "tsundoku. In "Words of the World That Cannot Be Translated" by Ella Frances Sanders, "tsundoku" is introduced as a word that does not express nuance well in many languages, along with " kurisarehiki " and " wabisabi".

Once I was dead, it was curiously easy to accept it. "Where are you taking me?" I asked. Death extended a bony finger, pointing at a tall tower in the distance. "What is that?" "Your unread books. Unwatched films. Unplayed games. Etcetera." "Oh. How much time do I have?" "All."

"Sometimes, I feel the past and the future pressing so hard on either side that there's no room for the present at all." - Evelyn Waugh, Brideshead Revisited

The Doll, Short Stories by Daphne du Maurier ... yesterday's acquisition ... today's pleasurable distraction.

As we stood in the charity shop, my friend laughed, turned to me and smiled and said mock excitedly 'Ooh look! A book on Scientology ... we could become Scientologists' ... I smiled in return and said 'OK, but then what shall we do tomorrow?' ... looking at the next book, my friend turned to me again, raised an eyebrow, giggled and said 'Apparently we'll be learning how to crochet' ...

me, buying more books, while I haven't read all I have at home

Tsundoku is the Japanese word to describe buying books and letting them pile up unread on shelves, floors, and nightstands.

Tsundoku

The value of owning more books than you can read

Or, how I learned to stop worrying and love my tsundoku.

by Kevin Dickinson

I love books. If I go to the bookstore to check a price, I walk out with three books I probably didn’t know existed beforehand. I buy second-hand books by the bagful at the Friends of the Library sale, while explaining to my wife that it’s for a good cause. Even the smell of books grips me, that faint aroma of earthy vanilla that wafts up at you when you flip a page.

The problem is that my book-buying habit outpaces my ability to read them. This leads to FOMO and occasional pangs of guilt over the unread volumes spilling across my shelves. Sound familiar?

But it’s possible this guilt is entirely misplaced. According to statistician Nassim Nicholas Taleb, these unread volumes represent what he calls an “antilibrary,” and he believes our antilibraries aren’t signs of intellectual failings. Quite the opposite.

READ MORE

tsundoku

a visual definition

Tsundoku è una parola d’uso colloquiale che si può tradurre come «l’atto di comprare un libro e poi non leggerlo, di solito mettendolo in una pila di altri libri non letti».

[...]

Al parigino Charles Asselineau, autore nel 1860 di un divertimento intitolato L’Inferno del bibliofilo, apparve sotto forma di un demone elegante – redingote con il bavero verde grigiastro, cappello dalla lunga falda inclinato sul naso – per trascinare il suo eroe negli inferi del Lungosenna, tra il girone delle bancarelle e quello delle aste di libri.

[...]

«Compra e non pensarci», gli sussurra affabilmente il demone ogni volta che lo vede tentennare; e cosí, un acquisto dissennato dopo l’altro, il bibliofilo si ritrova carico come una bestia da soma di libri che non ha nessuna intenzione di leggere, e indebitato per piú di trentamila franchi.

Cit. "Il lettore sul lettino. Tic, manie e stravaganze di chi ama i libri"

hey... I'm not the only one with this problem 🤷🏼‍♀️

Well, at least I don’t have to fret about not reading piles of bought manga/comic books/light novels in the house anymore. Turns out there’s a Japanese term for this sort of bad habit out there. And I’m grateful for it.