I have difficulties remembering Japanese words (because they're not related to any language I know) so I have to write about tsundoku, to finally inscribe it into my memory as well as in the blog.
Tsundoku is of course the art of collecting more books than you can conceivably read, or growing an ever expanding to-be-read pile. As this excellent piece in The Conversation explains very succinctly, it's all about the pleasure of anticipation, which is actually measurable with the methods of modern neuroscience. Thus, looking forward to potentially reading an interesting book in the future is almost as satisfying as the reading experience itself. According to the piece, the words involved in the neologism tsundoku are about stacking things up (tsunde), leaving something for later (oku) and reading (doku).
To me personally it is also important that I can arrange physical manifestations of knowledge in an order of my choice, such that I can find it whenever I need it. Especially now that AI is eating the internet and it is getting harder every day to find anything. meaningful online. Stockpiling books is also a way of prepping for the coming information apocalypse.
While I've always had tsundoku tendencies (also extending to other activities beyond reading), the availability of free books from street libraries and house clearances in the neighbourhood have recently been a major boost, enabling me to start collections of early rororo paperbacks and Bloomsbury related biographies, respectively at zero cost.
Here's one of my tsundoku shelves ... fittingly including the book Spillover, because it is also kind of a spillover shelf.
For the books I have actually read, see my new page on bookreviews.
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