There’s a Word for Buying Books and Not Reading Them

By Dianna Dilworth 

Do you buy books and not read them? There is a word in Japanese that describes this behavior.

It’s called tsundoku and it literally translates into reading pile. OZY.com has more:

Certainly, it’s unlikely you’re going to hear the word tsundoku on the subway. But in a language where there are words for canceling an appointment at the last minute and the culture-specific condition of adult male shut-in syndrome, how can you be surprised? Other, similar words like tsūdoku (read through) and jukudoku (reading deeply) are in praise of sitting down with a book (doku means “to read”). But we think tsundoku is particularly special: Oku means to do something and leave it for a while, says Sahoko Ichikawa, a senior lecturer at Cornell University, and tsunde means to stack things.