Do your hands itch to grab a copy every time you cross a bookstore? Do you find yourself adding books to your wish-list even before you finish the last four ones you purchased? Well, there is finally a word for this, Tsundoku.
The Japanese word doku essentially means reading and tsun which originates in tsumu is a word that means to pile up. So when put together, tsundoku means the buying of reading material and piling it up.
According to Professor Gerstle who teaches pre-modern Japanese at the University of London, “The phrase ‘tsundoku sensei’ appears in text from 1879 according to the writer Mori Senzo. Which is likely to be satirical, about a teacher who has lots of books but doesn’t read them.”
However, it isn’t an insult as the term implies that there is an intention to go around to reading it eventually. It hangs somewhere between bibliomania and hoarding, a perfect combination of loving books too much and not actually getting around to reading them.
