According to Wikipedia, tsundoku (tsoon-doh-koo) is a portmanteau that comes from the Japanese words for piling things up for later.
Are you facing the sudden realization that you suffer from tsundoku. If you have a tsundoku problem, there are more than a few ways to complete book hoarder rehab:
Parting with books takes utmost honesty. You need to be honest with yourself about what you have read, still want to read, etc. It’s easy to convince yourself you will read books you haven’t gotten to yet in some indefinite future. But let’s be real. If they gave you any joy, you would have already consumed them.
Purge and Conquer: Unread books are the most difficult to part with. You probably have a small fortune worth of unread books piled on your bedside table and plenty more that were moved to the bookshelf as the pile grew. Take them all out, and stare at them. If there is nothing but guilt stopping you, give them away. Deep down, you know you’re not going to read them. There are better and newer books in the world, and your interests have changed. Look at the bright side—once you give these away, someone will actually read them.
- Organize: If your book-piling proble
m is more about the piles than the books, good news: Getting that under control is easy. Get yourself a sturdy brand new bookshelf and decide how you want to sort them all. - Go Digital: Collections need not take up a ton of space. If the thought of cutting off your tsundoku habit gives you the shakes, you can still hoard hundreds—thousands!, millions!— of books and magazines without taking over your home. A $10 subscription to Texture will give you digital access to all the magazines, and something like Kindle Unlimited can take care of the books.
