Tsundoku & a Cringeworthy Announcement

a.k.a. The Big Book Issue

My home library…as you can see, I have plenty of room for more books.

Note: this post is long! If you cannot see the end in your inbox, click on over to view it on the website.

Farewell, February!

We’ve almost made it through the winter months! Thank you for joining me the past few weeks as I’ve talked about choices. We talked about planning our year (or not); cookies; and setting that bar low.

Today’s bonus post is about books…and what we do with them. I also fill you in on a cringeworthy choice I have made lately. Grab a coffee, pull up a chair, and let’s get cozy, shall we?

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Tsundoku

One of life’s greatest pleasures is stumbling across a new word that allows you to reframe a problematic behavior and voila! turn it into something cute and quirky. Now you can brag about it: You are known! You are worldly!

So, you can imagine my delight when I learned the Japanese word tsundoku, the phenomenon of acquiring reading materials but letting them pile up in one's home without reading them.¹

This is opposed to bibliomania, which means that you are trying to amass a book collection. Tsundoku is an accidental phenomenon and an endearing slang term in Japanese culture.² And, turns out, the perfect word for me to adopt.

I have my library, as you see above…but these are mostly books I’ve already read and honestly just part of my problem. One of those shelves has about 20 unread books, plus I have another pile in my bedroom of 20 or so more, PLUS a shorter stack of library books I’m working through.

I learned recently that some people think that holding on to your books is “smug and middle class.”³ While that stings, I do understand that I live in the Midwest where space is more available. Also, I agree that there are some smarmy people out there that simply want to show off their Proust and Faulkner. Me? I just love being able to look at them and loan them out.

Besides, I have a long way to go before I reach the level of Dr. Richard Macksey, a professor at Johns Hopkins University. His collection was estimated at over 35,000 volumes.⁴ Goals!

The late Dr. Richard Macksey’s library was in his home in Maryland.

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An Announcement

Before I go into a list of book recommendations, I wanted to share a sort of cringeworthy announcement:

I’m not on social media right now!

I generally hate when people “announce” their departure from social media. It can read as weird virtue-signaling. But, since I do interact with so many of you that way, I wanted to explain why I haven’t been around.

It’s not a judgy reason, either… it’s simply that I was spending too much time there. I was missing my book reading time because I was getting lost in the scroll. I check in on Facebook occasionally when I’m on my computer, but no Instagram at all…. at least for right now.

I do miss sharing things on that platform, however, which is why I wanted to share some book recommendations with you!

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