My wife thinks I have a problem. And she's probably right. Just the other night, I was telling her that I needed to go drop off a few books and pick up some new ones at the library. She told me that she could go to the library the following day while she was running other errands. I responded, "I really was hoping to pick up a new book to read during the train commute to work tomorrow." She quickly replied back with what I thought was a very fair and appropriate response. "Why don't you read one of the ten books that you've bought in the last month or two on Amazon?" Touché!
I've talked about my "problem" a few times in the past. As it turns out, there's a name for my problem - it's called "Tsundoku" (see my post, "Today's word is...tsundoku"). "Tsundoku" is a Japanese word that describes the phenomenon (dare I say "addiction") of acquiring reading materials but letting them pile up in one's home without reading them. According to its Wikipedia page, the word first came into use during the Meiji era of Japanese history (from about 1868 to 1912) and is a portmanteau that combines the Japanese words "tsunde" (meaning to stack things), "oku" (meaning to leave for a while), and "doku" (meaning to read).
Apparently, a famous book collector from the early 1900's named A. Edward Newton once said, "…it is my pleasure to buy more books than I can read. Who was it who said, ‘I hold the buying of more books than one can peradventure read, as nothing less than the soul’s reaching towards infinity; which is the only thing that raises us above the beasts that perish’? Whoever it was, I agree with him." The British writer Holbrook Jackson added, "Even when reading is impossible, the presence of books acquired by passionate devotion to them produces such an ecstasy that the buying of more books than one can peradventure read is nothing less than the soul reaching towards infinity, and that this passion is the only thing that raises us above the beasts that perish, an argument which some have used in defense of the giddy raptures invoked by wine."
Well, I can't help but agree with these sentiments. As a matter of fact, Holbrook Jackson's quote refers to two of my vices (at least according to my wife), "tsundoku" and "oenophilia" (i.e. the love of wine). I recently picked up the book The Black Swan: The Impact of the Highly Probable by Nassim Nicholas Taleb. It's the second time that I have tried to read it, and in full disclosure, I didn't get past page 20. With all apologies, I just couldn't get past the writing itself - the writer seemed incredibly full of himself (a number of the negative reviewers on both Amazon.com and Goodreads.com felt the same way). Regardless, one of the things that Taleb mentions (albeit in the first 20 pages) is another writer, Umberto Eco and his famous love of books. Apparently Eco's personal library contained over 30,000 books. He reportedly distinguished visitors between those who react with "Wow! Signore professore dottore Eco, what a library you have! How many of these books have you read?" and the others who subscribe to the sentiments expressed above, that having a large number of books on your shelf isn't meant to boost your own personal ego. It just means that you love books.
Eco would argue that having a large number of unread books is more important than having read all of the books in your library. Taleb writes, "Read books are far less valuable than unread ones. The library should contain as much of what you do not know as your financial means, mortgage rates, and the currently tight real-estate market allows you to put there. You will accumulate more knowledge and more books as you grow older, and the growing number of unread books on the shelves will look at you menacingly. Indeed, the more you know, the larger the rows of unread books. Let us call this collection of unread books an anti-library."
Incidentally, Eco usually responded to the visitors who asked him "Have you read all of these books!?!?" with a deadpan, "No, these are the ones I have to read by the end of the month. I keep the others in my office." I love it! So, here's to all of you out there who own an anti-library! Keep reading and don't ever stop learning!
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