Tsundoku

{{short description|Term for buying books but not reading them}}

File:Felix’s Tsundoku 7583.jpg

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{{Use dmy dates|date=April 2021}}

{{nihongo||積ん読|Tsundoku}} is the phenomenon of acquiring reading materials but letting them pile up in one's home without reading them.{{cite news|last1=Brooks|first1=Katherine|title=There's A Japanese Word For People Who Buy More Books Than They Can Actually Read|url=https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/theres-a-japanese-word-for-people-who-buy-more-books-than-they-can-actually-read_us_58f79b7ae4b029063d364226|access-date=16 October 2017|work=The Huffington Post|date=19 March 2017}}{{cite news|last1=Tobar|first1=Hector|title=Are you a book hoarder? There's a word for that.|url=http://www.latimes.com/books/jacketcopy/la-et-jc-book-hoarding-tsundoku-20140724-story.html|access-date=16 October 2017|work=Los Angeles Times|date=24 July 2014}}{{cite news|last=Gerken|first=Tom|url=https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-44981013 |title=Tsundoku: The art of buying books and never reading them |work=BBC News |date=29 July 2018 |access-date=30 July 2018}}{{cite news|last1=Crow|first1=Jonathan|title='Tsundoku', the Japanese Word for the New Books That Pile Up on Our Shelves, Should Enter the English Language|url=https://www.openculture.com/2014/07/tsundoku-should-enter-the-english-language.html|work=Open Culture |access-date=28 March 2021|date=24 July 2014}} The term is also used to refer to unread books on a bookshelf meant for reading later.

The term originated in the Meiji era (1868–1912) as Japanese slang. It combines elements of the terms {{nihongo||積んでおく|tsunde-oku|"to pile things up ready for later and leave"}}, and {{nihongo||読書|dokusho|"reading books"}}. There are suggestions to use the word in the English language and include it in dictionaries like the Collins Dictionary.

The American author and bibliophile A. Edward Newton commented on a similar state in 1921.{{cite web |last1=Dodson |first1=Steve |date=February 7, 2008 |title=A Quote on Bibliomania |url=http://languagehat.com/a-quote-on-bibliomania/ |website=Language Hat |accessdate=July 24, 2016}}

In his 2007 book The Black Swan, Nassim Nicholas Taleb coined the term "antilibrary", which has been compared with {{transl|ja|tsundoku}}.{{Cite web|last=Popova|first=Maria|date=2015-03-24|title=Umberto Eco's Antilibrary: Why Unread Books Are More Valuable to Our Lives than Read Ones|url=https://www.brainpickings.org/2015/03/24/umberto-eco-antilibrary/|access-date=2022-01-26|website=The Marginalian|language=en-US}}