Tales From My Bookshelf: Unguilty Tsundoko

Like every book collector/lover, I also have a "TBR pile" (To Be Read). This is a polite English expression for what the Japanese call "tsundoku": buying books, piling them up, and somehow believing that one day you will actually read them. I do have every intention to get to them, to savor their hidden delights. I buy a new book with the solemn promise, "This one I will definitely read soon."

And I try. Some books I have eventually read. This year's reading list, for example, is nearly 40% read. I am resolved I will read them all.

Of course, life gets in the way. Also, I am not as speedy a reader as I used to be. So they sit there - silent, unjudging- a beautifully organized record of my optimism, poor time management, and persistent inability to walk past a bookstore (2nd hand, online, and other iterations of bookstores these days).

But perhaps "tsundoku" is not entirely a vice.

Perhaps there is something wonderfully hopeful about surrounding ourselves with books we have not yet read. Every unread book is a door we have not opened, a conversation we have not yet had, a thought that may still surprise us.

Am I too optimistic to hope that I'll eventually read them? Maybe. Maybe I will never finish the pile, and perhaps that is the point.

A life of reading is not about conquering every book, but remaining curious about what lies beyond what we already know. The TBR pile quietly reminds us that there are still worlds ahead of us. There are still questions worth asking. There are still pages waiting. Perhaps the most beautiful thing about an unread book is the promise that we are not finished becoming.