July 19, 2019

Hey book lovers! Do you love building your own library? Does that mean you have dozens and dozens of books you just haven't gotten around to yet? Are they piled haphazardly in stacks in front of your bookcase? And does having those stacks give you a certain sense of comfort and peace? 

There's a word for that; tsundoku.

The Huffington Post gave a breakdown of the specifics of the term: 

Defined as the stockpiling of books that will never be consumed, the term is a Japanese portmanteau of sorts, combining the words “tsunde” (meaning “to stack things”), “oku” (meaning “to leave for a while”) and “doku” (meaning “to read”). 

The term tends toward the lighter side of hoarding stuff, and is evocative of being comfortable in your little book fort, merrily revisiting classics and making discoveries in the stacks that you find around you. 

For those of you who think you might be in the grips of full-on tsundoku syndrome, there is even a subreddit where you can chat with fellow bibliophiles about your collections. 

As for myself, my tsundoku stack is mostly horror novels, coffee table art books about 80s pulp, and the occasional dark history book.