Tsundoku precursor to thudoku?

Tsundoku is a Japanese word that means collecting books you plan to read, and then don’t get around to. Instead, you pile them up on shelves, desks, nightstands and floors. This Japanese term carries no negative connotation, nor should it in English.

After all, when we get carried away buying books — so easy to order them online nowadays — we don’t intend to use them as doorstops.

In our house, they just keep accumulating, and must vie for space with library books from two or three library systems. Much as I’d love to, I can’t read all the books I get my hands on. Yet I can’t resist the temptation to get my hands on them.

So they end up spread around the house in piles. When my husband painted my office a couple of years ago, I vowed to cut back on the book-buying, and stop double stacking. Alas, I have not managed to keep that vow. On these shelves, the haphazard stacks of books have completely obscured the inner rows, once neatly organized and accessible.

I only hope this advanced stage of tsundoku doesn’t lead to a more potentially dangerous syndrome. We are concerned about the risk of thudoku. That’s what happens when the piles become high and precarious enough to come crashing down on the head of the owner.