Short description: Term for buying books but not reading them
A stack of books found after cleaning a room
Tsundoku (積ん読) is the phenomenon of acquiring reading materials but letting them pile up in one's home without reading them.[1][2][3][4] The term is also used to refer to books ready for reading later when they are on a bookshelf.
The term originated in the Meiji era (1868–1912) as Japanese slang.[4] It combines elements of the terms tsunde-oku (積んでおく; "to pile things up ready for later and leave"), and dokusho (読書; "reading books"). There are suggestions to use the word in the English language and include it in dictionaries like the Collins Dictionary.[4]
The American author and bibliophile A. Edward Newton commented on a similar state in 1921.[5]
In his 2007 book, The Black Swan, Nassim Nicholas Taleb coined the term "antilibrary", which has been compared with tsundoku.[6]