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What's in your Tsundoku?

Purple Fairy TreePurple Fairy Tree Posts: 1,977
in All Encompassing Trip
Tsundoku, the Japanese word defined as the habit of collecting stacks of books that you haven't read and might never get to

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  • Purple Fairy TreePurple Fairy Tree Posts: 1,977
    edited April 2021

    Prof Andrew Gerstle teaches pre-modern Japanese texts at the University of London.

    The word "doku" can be used as a verb to mean "reading". According to Prof Gerstle, the "tsun" in "tsundoku" originates in "tsumu" - a word meaning "to pile up".

    So when put together, "tsundoku" has the meaning of buying reading material and piling it up.

    "The phrase 'tsundoku sensei' appears in text from 1879 according to the writer Mori Senzo," Prof Gerstle explained. "Which is likely to be satirical, about a teacher who has lots of books but doesn't read them."

    While this might sound like tsundoku is being used as an insult, Prof Gerstle said the word does not carry any stigma in Japan.

    Source: BBC News 

    Post edited by Purple Fairy Tree on
  • The JugglerThe Juggler Posts: 49,502
    Mine's blank
    www.myspace.com
  • Purple Fairy TreePurple Fairy Tree Posts: 1,977
    edited April 2021
    Haha Juggler... Are you telling me you have read every book in your house that you have ever owned from cover to cover? Including ebooks?
    Post edited by Purple Fairy Tree on
  • Purple Fairy TreePurple Fairy Tree Posts: 1,977
    edited April 2021
    This is my current stack of bedside reading which is often rotated with other books I'd like to read but never really get round to:



    *The Sleep Book is targeted at insomniacs, so very difficult to pick up and read at night if you don't have problems with getting to sleep!

    Post edited by Purple Fairy Tree on
  • The JugglerThe Juggler Posts: 49,502
    West Coast Dreamgirl said:
    Haha Juggler... Are you telling me you have read every book in your house that you have ever owned from cover to cover? Including ebooks?
    Yes. But I read all my books backwards. 
    www.myspace.com
  • Purple Fairy TreePurple Fairy Tree Posts: 1,977
    edited April 2021
    What you mean not in order? I quite like making notes in notepad backwards, like the Japanese but I dont think I could write in symbols like Arabic or backwards.
  • The JugglerThe Juggler Posts: 49,502
    edited April 2021
    West Coast Dreamgirl said:
    What you mean not in order? I quite like making notes in notepad backwards, like the Japanese but I dont think I could write in symbols like Arabic or backwards.
    I start from the last word on the last page and just read in reverse. The Japanese got nothing on me.
    www.myspace.com
  • Purple Fairy TreePurple Fairy Tree Posts: 1,977
    edited April 2021
    Like listening to a record in reverse? You're funny.
    Post edited by Purple Fairy Tree on
  • hedonisthedonist Posts: 24,524
    West Coast Dreamgirl said:
    Like listening to a record in reverse? You funny.
    “Paul is dead.”
  • F Me In The BrainF Me In The Brain this knows everybody from other commets Posts: 31,600
    I'm not showing mine.  :lol:
    About 50 books.  I keep adding to it ....just got another 5 books in the past week.  
    The love he receives is the love that is saved
  • oftenreadingoftenreading Victoria, BC Posts: 12,848
    Tempting. I’m not at home but when I am, I’ll take a pic. 

    (And yes, I bought four new books this week, two of which are pre-orders for releases this summer :lol: )
    my small self... like a book amongst the many on a shelf
  • PureandEasyPureandEasy Posts: 5,817
    I love to read.  I tend to read an author and then if I enjoy the book, I will continue to read everything until I have read all I can find by that author.  I don't really have a genre so to speak, but I like detective stories, thrillers, crime novels . . . you get the point.  I don't like SciFi or romance novels.  In 2019 I purchased via Amazon all of the Winston Graham Poldark novels,12 all together. After reading them, I donated them to my local library.

    With the pandemic, my local library has been closed and is still closed.  You can request books online and pick them up but even that schedule is not convenient for me.  At work we have various books on a shelf and I have read all that interested me. After I lost that option, I heard an interview on the radio with John Douglas, former FBI agent responsible for developing the Behavioral Science Unit - profiling criminals.  So then I ordered a few of  his books.  Fascinating reading but quite disturbing at the same time.  So after two I was done with those.

    Then I ordered a few books on line that once I started reading realized I had read them before.  But I read them again because it had been a while and I'm not opposed to reading a book multiple times.

    So recently I went in a whole different direction, I decided to order a few books written by women I admire.  So I don't have a Tsundoku so to speak since I read what I buy/borrow . . . and then donate.  But this is what I have up next . . . 





    Don't come closer or I'll have to go
  • Purple Fairy TreePurple Fairy Tree Posts: 1,977
    edited April 2021
    Good plan @pureandeasy and interesting books.
    The thing with donating books is I did that and ended buying them again. I might donate some books from my tsundoku.
    Post edited by Purple Fairy Tree on
  • JPPJ84JPPJ84 Hamburg, Germany Posts: 3,464
    edited April 2021
    I love buying books and like most of you then don’t have the time to read them all. Plus if I love a book I definitely read it more than once. When I‘m stressed that’s so much easier than reading a new one.
    But I‘ll catch up eventually, hopefully. Next on my Tsundoku list is Good Omens by Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett. Then I can finally watch the Amazon series as well. Then Dune before the new movie comes out 
  • F Me In The BrainF Me In The Brain this knows everybody from other commets Posts: 31,600
    Both of those are great reads.  
    Have been thinking on going back through the Dune books again.
    (This is one of the reasons why the pile is so large....I re-read other books or read one in a series and buy/read other books in the series.)
    The love he receives is the love that is saved
  • oftenreadingoftenreading Victoria, BC Posts: 12,848
    So, how far along the Dune books did you get, F Me? I have not read them in decades but I seem to recall I got about 3.5 books in. The original is definitely a classic. 
    my small self... like a book amongst the many on a shelf
  • The JugglerThe Juggler Posts: 49,502
    West Coast Dreamgirl said:
    Like listening to a record in reverse? You're funny.
    No. Why would anyone do that? 
    www.myspace.com
  • F Me In The BrainF Me In The Brain this knows everybody from other commets Posts: 31,600
    oftenreading said:
    So, how far along the Dune books did you get, F Me? I have not read them in decades but I seem to recall I got about 3.5 books in. The original is definitely a classic. 
    I believe I stopped after the third one.  Really enjoyed but felt it was time to move along.  May have read the 4th but I don't think so.
    Did go back and reread the first one somewhere along the line, as well.  

    The love he receives is the love that is saved
  • MalrothMalroth broken down chevrolet Posts: 2,533
    Only 2!  and getting ready to pick 1.

    Lincoln in the Bardo by George Saunders 9780812985405 PenguinRandomHousecom Books

    Here I Am Foer Jonathan Safran 9781250135759 Amazoncom Books

    The worst of times..they don't phase me,
    even if I look and act really crazy.
  • PureandEasyPureandEasy Posts: 5,817
    West Coast Dreamgirl said:
    Good plan @pureandeasy and interesting books.
    The thing with donating books is I did that and ended buying them again. I might donate some books from my tsundoku.
    That's why you donate them to your local library, you can always borrow them again.   =)
    Don't come closer or I'll have to go
  • markymark550markymark550 Columbia, SC Posts: 5,179
    Right now the 2 that are on my list are



    and


  • brianluxbrianlux Moving through All Kinds of Terrain. Posts: 42,770
    I know I'll never read all the books I have, but most of the ones I keep are ones I hope to get to.  The only ones I keep I know I won't read all of are many in my Golden Guide and Observers Guide collections.  I'm not much into collecting just to be collecting, but these are very small books and that's my large justification, lol.
    I've got a small stack by the bed I want to get to next but right now I'm absorbed in the very slow reading of Eric Nisenson's Ascension, a book about John Coltrane.  This book is so amazingly full of rich thought and information.  I'm intentionally reading it very slowly so as to fully savor it.  This might well be the finest book on music I've ever read. 
    Oh, and it fits in well with the thread topic in a way.  Coltrane's last tour took place in Japan and he was deeply fascinated by the country and it's history and culture, and he was hugely well received there. 
    Ascension John Coltrane And His Quest by Eric Nisenson

    "Don't give in to the lies.  Don't give in to the fear. Hold on to the truth.  And to hope."
    -Jim Acosta











  • Purple Fairy TreePurple Fairy Tree Posts: 1,977
    That sounds really interesting Brian, I'd like to learn more about him too.  
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