Tsundoku: A term every book lover needs to know

https://thomasdeneuville.com/tsundoku/ ^ | January 28, 2021 | By Thomas Deneuville

[kawhill]

It is not a book you need. It’s not anywhere near the top of your to-read list. But you have to buy it.

You already know where you’ll put it: on top of the pile of books on your bedside table.

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TOPICS: Books/Literature; History
KEYWORDS: blog; thomasdeneuville; tsunblogs; tsundoku

[Harmless Teddy Bear]

Tsundoku, on the other hand, is about a desire to read the books one purchases… but never actually doing it.

What kind of freaky concept is this?

I buy a book to read it. If I am not going to read it, I do not buy it.

Humans are getting very strange.

Oh, I read about a book every two days. My problem is not enough money to buy all the books I can read.

[xp38]

I play sudoku but I assume it isn’t this concept.

[Red Badger]

I buy books all the time that I will read eventually. I just finished two, Robinson Crusoe and Tom Sawyer. So I’m a little behind........

[Nateman]

The word tsundoku is a combination of two Japanese terms: tsunde-oku (to let things pile up) and dokusho (reading books). In other words: buying books, stacking them up, and never reading them.

You buy them intending to read them but never get around to it. Guilty.

[dfwgator]

Kind of like all those Columbia House CDs I ordered that I never listened to.

[Red Badger]

Currently working on Last of the Minivans and David Copperfield..........

[discostu]

I’m reading a bunch of books right now that I’ve owned for years. One of them a couple decades. Book people are like that. It looks really interesting when you buy it then... other books pique your interest more. Doesn’t mean you don’t intend to read that one, eventually, some rainy day, or maybe when you’re laid up after a surgery or something.

[randomwalk]

exactly same here. i have maybe 9 piles like that. also CD’s,
movies, and record albums. My damned Amazon Kindle is now doing same thing. I probably have some packrat genes or something, mixed into the Neanderthal ones...

[ansel12]

My mother had sent me The Agony and the Ecstasy
by Irving Stone and I kept it for years without reading it because of the subject (art), but then one day I picked it up and devoured it and loved it, a week or two later in an upscale beach bar/restaurant I met a sophisticated English sculptor who had moved to the states and my having just finished the book gave me a passionate discussion with this accomplished artist and sometimes art professor and lecturer which led to us becoming each other’s best friend for 42 years.

I’ve always wondered about those little coincidences, they seemed much more than pure chance.

[discostu]

I think some of it is having diverse interests. 1 type of book, 1 type of movie, 1 type of music, it’s just not enough for some of us. But also there is joy in acquisition. That “check out what I found”. Crafters are notorious for that too. Really any interest taken to a “nerdy” level. It’s fun.

[Eccl 10:2]

“Currently working on Last of the Minivans...”

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Gotta love auto-correct.

[BradyLS]

Oh, let me guess!

Then you apply the Konmari method, where you only keep the things you truly love. The latest book you bought is the one you love most. (You have to, right? Yiu had to have it!) It stays. The earliest book you bought but have not read is one you love the least. (Stands to reason, yes?) It must go.

Set a number for the number of books you truly love. Anything over is detritus and must be sold, given, or thrown away. This leaves a stack 20-100 of your most cherished, unread books!

Did you just buy a new book? Out goes Unread #101! By this way your life remains in balance.

[Red Badger]

I hate that POS!................................

[TexasKamaAina]

About 15 years ago I started doing something similar. Especially letting go of books I’ve already read. Asked myself why I had a compulsion to save a book when I pay a similar amount to see a movie and walk away from it with nothing in hand.

[Patriot777]

There are a lot of books that I have that I know for a fact that I will never get around to reading. The first category, old books that have been around since I was a kid, the second old college books, and the third books I purchased and then realized I’m better off reading The Bible instead of focusing on books that the author intends to help you understand The Word or The End Times.

For The Bible, it’s God through the Holy Spirit and through the pastor.
I do like Handbooks to The Bible to explore historical and pictures of all the places.

Hopefully this year I’ll be donating a whole mess of books to charity / thrift.
(One time I donated a whole set of 1960’s Encyclopedia Brittanica and the volunteers were looking at those big boxes full of heavy books and sighing. What was I supposed to do? Throw them away?)

[House Atreides]

“ Tsundoku, on the other hand, is about a desire to read the books one purchases… but never actually doing it”
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Sadly, to be honest I have to admit that I’ve been guilty of this crime on occasion. Well, maybe a little more than occasionally.

[Thank You Rush]

“”My problem is not enough money to buy all the books I can read””

I buy them used at thriftbooks.com...low prices. I keep a list of what I want and when it’s 10-12 books, I place an order. I read every single one and donate them when I’m done with them. I used to save them for my HVAC guy when he comes for summer/winter inspections but he’s been put on commercial accounts now so I’ll have to figure something else out. Our St. Vincent de Paul was great but closed up shop - drop a bunch off, go right next door, buy more!! My son in law is a prolific reader also but we don’t have the same interests so we can’t swap..My grandson said his dad has dozens of boxes of books in their basement and his mother said, “HE HAS WHAT? I thought he got rid of them”. Her husband said, “I’ll read them again.” He can fly on a business trip and read/finish a book on one trip. I have a couple going at the same time but spaced out...

[Harmless Teddy Bear]

I winnow out the hoard on occasion.

Books that I or DH will read again stay on the shelf.

Books that were "meh" go in the bag to be returned to the store.

Books that we might read again are shelved but with a tiny mental note that unless they are found compelling in the next five years they are going back to the store.

Books we have not read are in the headboard. At any one time there are around twenty books in there.

It used not to bother me but after the Great Silliness of 2020 I make sure the number of unread books does not get very far down. You never know when history will repeat it's self.

There is no "balance" when it comes to books. Books are the fulcrum on which all learning and growth rests.

[Thank You Rush]

I don’t have any books in the house I haven’t read EXCEPT for the recently purchased ones from thriftbooks.com...

I have gotten hooked on “The Count of Monte Cristo” on Masterpiece Theater Sunday nights and considered ordering the book but the story is so confusing just watching it on TV, I think it would drive me crazy reading it. I have made a list of the characters and still can’t keep them straight..It can also be found online and I watch again and even look for synopsis of each episode - still CONFUSING!!