Tsundoku (積読, tsundoku): The Art of Buying Books You Haven't Read (Yet)
Tsundoku (tsundoku, 積読) is the perfect Japanese word for anyone who keeps buying books even though there is already an ever-growing pile of unread ones at home. Somehow, having a word for it makes it feel almost acceptable. Almost. It does ease the guilty conscience a little.
The word first appeared in the Meiji period, in the late 19th century, as a slightly teasing way of describing books that sat around gathering dust while waiting to be read. More than a century later, not much has changed.
When I first came across the word, I got curious about where it came from. It is written 積読 (tsundoku), literally "stack" (tsumu, 積む) + "read" (doku, 読). But the sound of it made me think of 積んでおく (tsunde oku), meaning something like "to stack away for later."
And that, apparently, is where it comes from.
My own little tsundoku pile
So, what books are stacked beside your bed? Which ones do you pack for every holiday and then bring home untouched?
At the moment, I have four.
How the World Thinks: A Global History of Philosophy was an airport buy on the way home from a holiday in Greece. After immersing myself in Greek myths and philosophy, I got curious about what was happening in the rest of the world at the same time. I started reading it ... and I'm still somewhere in the introduction.
Wherever You Go, There You Are by Jon Kabat-Zinn was bought at his retreat last year. I pick it up now and then to read a few pages. A bit of food for the soul.
My Grandfather, the Master Detective is a rare novel (I almost never buy novels, because I know I will only read them once) I found in Dublin. As usual, I wanted to know the original Japanese title. I read it aloud and said, "Wow, that's an interesting translation!" My friend laughed and corrected me: 名探偵のままでいて (Meitantei no mama de ite). I had read mama as ママ (mama, "mother") instead of まま (mama, "as is" or "remain"). So I genuinely thought the title meant Be the Mama of a Master Detective and wondered where the grandfather had come from.
The last one is Kiku: The Japanese Art of Good Listening, another Dublin find. I had actually seen it in the United States first, but waited for the paperback edition.
The title refers to 聴く (kiku, "to listen attentively"), rather than 聞く (kiku, "to hear" or "to listen" in the everyday sense). The kanji 聴 is described as containing an "ear" and "fourteen hearts," which suggests deep listening.
It's exactly the kind of book I should be reading right now. But I've decided not to take it with me on my upcoming trip to Japan (half work, half holiday), because I've noticed a pattern...
I seem to buy books wherever I travel. So I’ll be working on my tsundoku pile this summer….!
A little Japanese grammar
The phrase 積んでおく (tsunde oku) combines two verbs.
The first is 積む (tsumu), meaning "to pile up," "to stack," or "to accumulate." In the te-form (te-kei, て形), it becomes 積んで (tsunde).
The second is 置く (oku), which literally means "to put" or "to place." But when it follows the te-form of another verb (**〜ておく / **te oku), it becomes an auxiliary verb and changes the meaning a bit.
This pattern has two main uses:
Doing something in preparation for the future. For example, buying books now so you can read them later.
Leaving something as it is. In this case, leaving the books stacked on a shelf, table, or beside the bed.
In casual Japanese, 積んでおく (tsunde oku) often gets shortened to 積んどく (tsundoku).
And this is where the pun comes in.
The sound doku is the same as 読 (doku, "reading"), as in 読書 (dokusho), meaning "reading books." At some point in the Meiji period, someone seems to have had the bright idea of combining the shortened form 積んどく (tsundoku) with 読 (doku), and the result was 積読 (tsundoku): buying books, stacking them up, and not actually reading them.
