I discovered a vital new word this week on Book Group Online – tsundoko – which is a Japanese word to describe buying books and letting them pile up unread on the floor, on nightstands, or as in my case double stacked in a bookcase. I think it’s quite normal, it’s saving one, or several, or more than several for later just in case you feeel like reading it.
Definitely tsundoko – I bought these in October and most of them are still there on top of the kitchen cook-book cabinet.
There’s even a Tsundoko list on Goodreads; I have to admit I haven’t read or even tsundokoed The Last of the Mohicans or Contact by Carl Sagan which are numbers 1 and 2 on the list, but I have read Vanity Fair, Dracula, The Three Musketeers, The King Must Die which are all high up on the list and practically knew Dune, number 4, off by heart as a teenager because I’d read it so many times. Which all goes to show that one person’s tsundoko is another’s essential reading.
Japanese is full of useful words – Nito-onna describes a woman who is so dedicated to her career that she has no time to iron and dresses only in knitted tops. I wonder if it also includes non-career women who just don’t want to iron. A bakku-shan is a woman who looks pretty from the back but not from the front, Komorebi is the sort of scattered, dappled light effect that happens when sunlight shines in through tree leaves and Amagami is to pretend-bite someone. This might be more useful in football matches than the real thing, perhaps.
There’s about to be more tsundoko in this household as it’s the Phoenix Euro Book Sale next week, 18,000 second books in English for a euro. I know I don’t need any more books but there’s always room for a few more…
Victoria Corby 
What a fabulous word!!!
It is, isn’t it and most applicable.
At last! At last I have an ‘interesting fact of the day’ to relate to OH, who is ALWAYS the one with an ‘interesting fact’ which he then relays to me.
He has just been fascinated to learn that the Japanese actually have a word to describe the act of buying books and not reading them! We have been guilty of this, because when we get into a bookshop we tend to go a little mad. Sometimes we buy books that we then find unappealing when we start to read them in earnest, but sometimes we actually forget we have them. Tsundoko!!
I love Nito-onna, too. If it can apply to non-career women who just don’t iron, then I’m one!
I love the idea that it was thought necessary to invent a word for women who don’t iron – other than sensible.
What a great post. Some lovely words. Do you know whether “tsundoko” can be applied to books on Kindles? Or is there a special Japanese word for digital books? 🙂
There probably is, the Japanese seem to have a wonderfully extensive vocabulary.
Tsundoko and Nito-onna fantastic, thanks for introducing these wonderful words! Definitely suffer from both afflictions 🙂
Me too. The Nito-onnaism (sounds vaguely rude, doesn’t it?) has got so bad we’re about to run out of clothes to wear.
I think all book lovers suffer from tsundoko, although I just know I will eventually get around to all of my unread books. I never buy books that I don’t want to read. Thanks for the interesting Japanese. My daughters that are big manga fans are going to love learning these new words. They’re constantly trying to teach me new ones. Nice post! 🙂
I never buy books that I don’t want to read but I do buy books I’m not sure about and think that I might read sometime…..
I don’t think anybody buys books that they don’t want to read, but sometimes buying books because they collect them and will eventually get around to them is what book lovers do.
Are you learning Japanese or summink (or have I missed something)?? Great words though. One sounds like Kimosabi who wasn’t Japanese as far as I remember, but could have been from the sound of it. Perhaps it would have been a word to describe light dappling on water.
🙂
Sadly I don’t know any Japanese – apart from tsundoko now of course. There’s a site which has loads of untranslatable foreign words and the Japanese ones are particularly good.
What an amazing language that can describe all that in a single word! Since I was given a Kindle about 18 months ago, the books pile up in there instead.
There’s even a Tsundoko list on Goodreads; I have to admit I haven’t read or even tsundokoed The Last of the Mohicans or Contact by Carl Sagan which are numbers 1 and 2 on the list, but I have read Vanity Fair, Dracula, The Three Musketeers, The King Must Die which are all high up on the list and practically knew Dune, number 4, off by heart as a teenager because I’d read it so many times. Which all goes to show that one person’s tsundoko is another’s essential reading.