Tsundoku

I admit I engage in tsundoku. No, that’s not some form of Japanese martial art. It is something rather passive.

I can’t help buying books even though I have loads at home I haven’t read yet. But I buy books with the intention to read them eventually. It is just that the books start to pile up and I cannot read them fast enough. But don’t confuse tsundoku with bibliomania. Bibliomania describes the intention to create a book collection whereas tsundoku describes the intention to read books and their eventual, accidental collection. Tsundoku (積ん読) is acquiring reading materials but letting them pile up in one’s home without reading them.

The word “doku” can be used as a verb to mean “reading”. The “tsun” in “tsundoku” originates in “tsumu” – a word meaning “to pile up”.

Some of the hundreds of books that have piled up in my house due to tsundoku

The word dates back to the very beginning of modern Japan, the Meiji era (1868-1912) and has its origins in a pun. Tsundoku, which literally means reading pile, is written in Japanese as 積ん読. Tsunde oku means to let something pile up and is written 積んでおく. Some wag around the turn of the century swapped out that oku (おく) in tsunde oku for dokusho (読書) – meaning reading books. Then since tsunde doku is hard to say, the word got mushed together to form tsundoku.

While this might sound like tsundoku is being used as an insult, the word does not carry any stigma in Japan but is actually an endearing slang word.