The Japanese have a word for the act of acquiring books and letting them pile up unread.
Tsundoku—a play on the words tsunde (“to stack things”), oku (“to leave for a while”) and doku(“to read”)—is recognizable to book hoarders worldwide. You see a title and you just have to have it, even though you already have more unread books on your bedside table than you could possibly read in a year … but you’re going to get to it eventually, right? Tsundoku is such a relatable but untranslatable concept that it regularly re-enters our Western consciousness through online articles. In fact, Googling the word might lead you straight into another problem. I call it “Tab-sundoku,” or the even more recognizable act of opening tabs and letting them pile up unread.
Read more ‘Let Your Unread Tabs Pile Up’ at slate.com
