The ‘tsundoku’ phenomenon, or how we’ve normalized collecting books we’ll never read
This Japanese word describes a habit that many readers unknowingly engage in every time they acquire new copies of titles on their list
One, two, three… and so on, up to more than 30 books. This is the number of copies that Andrea Aragón has on her shelves at home, unread. A strange collection that, for this reader, never seems to be enough. She will continue buying them in bookstores, regardless of whether she does so impulsively or in a planned way. Like her, many people store volumes in their personal library without starting them or even glancing at the first page. This phenomenon was given a term in Japan in the 19th century: tsundoku. Or, in other words, the habit of collecting books without ever reading them, albeit with the intention of doing so.
