The ‘tsundoku’ phenomenon, or how we’ve normalized collecting books we’ll never read

One, two, three… and so on, up to more than 30 books. This is the number of copies that Andrea Aragón has on her shelves at home, unread. A strange collection that, for this reader, never seems to be enough. She will continue buying them in bookstores, regardless of whether she does so impulsively or in a planned way. Like her, many people store volumes in their personal library without starting them or even glancing at the first page. This phenomenon was given a term in Japan in the 19th century: tsundoku. Or, in other words, the habit of collecting books without ever reading them, albeit with the intention of doing so.

“I like to see them stacked up. One on top of the other, next to each other, sharing that space. It’s not that I feel joy, but it does give me a little bit of internal excitement to know that I have a collection that is going to be like my own library,” says Aragón. Her visits to bookstores always tend to culminate with a new acquisition: “It has happened on occasion that I went to a store, fell in love with a cover and a synopsis, and said: ‘I’m taking it.’” This experience has also been felt by Beatriz Marín, or bea_lalectora on social media — she has more than 30,000 followers on her TikTok account alone. “Nowadays, with capitalism, with so many new things coming out, you go to buy a book and you find three copies that catch your attention, you buy them, and then you have the time you have. This is a question of books not expiring, and neither does literature,” she explains in conversation with this newspaper.

There are two variables that can define this phenomenon, explains Montserrat Lacalle, a professor at the faculty of psychology and education sciences at the Open University of Catalonia (UOC). “The first is when people engage in a behavior. In this case, it is the act of buying a work. There is a part in which the person feels the emotion, a sensation as if they had already read it or already have the knowledge. And that experience is very pleasurable.” The other aspect is procrastination. “Sometimes, we think of it as a behavior that is done out of disinterest or lack of motivation, and this is not necessarily the case. There are people who, because that moment of reading has to be so pleasant or ideal, don’t find it and, behaviorally, end up procrastinating. Basically, it’s going from day to day and finding that the moment to carry out that behavior never arrives.”

The Federation of Publishers’ Guilds (FGEE) reports — according to the Barometer of Reading and Book Buying Habits in Spain 2024, presented in January — that just over half the population aged 14 or over read frequently, 14.3% read occasionally, and just over a third almost never or never do so. Of this last group, 46.8% admit that it is because of lack of time. “There are still a lot of people who accumulate books, because many new releases come out every month and you buy them thinking that you will get round to them, if not this month, next month, and then loads more come out,” says TikToker Marín.

But why do we leave books unread, even if the initial intention was to do so? “People are like that sometimes. We put the focus of attention or the solution where it doesn’t belong. Then it becomes a kind of vicious circle. Are there people who feel guilty? Yes: ‘I have to do it, I have to read.’ But, curiously, this person is still going to buy another volume,” Lacalle explains. “When our thoughts and our behavior are not aligned in the same direction, one would think that what we have to do is change our behavior to be consistent. Well, no. We call this phenomenon cognitive dissonance. What most people do is change their thoughts and develop a story that goes along with their behavior,” says the expert.

The volumes are piled up on Andrea Aragón’s bookshelf. She knows she doesn’t have time to read all the titles she hasn’t managed to yet, but she intends to do so at some point. “I’m aware that I have too many, but I want to read them all. My wish is for that endless pile to go down, although I always end up buying something. It’s inevitable!” she admits.

And what about social networks? From the point of view of Marín, a content creator specializing in literature, they encourage consumption, although it depends on each person. Along those lines, as an individual reader, Aragón believes that personal relationships have more influence than possible prescribers of the virtual community: “I like to exchange opinions about books, titles of authors, male or female, with my friends... And that they decide to share that with me seems very nice to me, that’s why most of the time I’m inclined to follow those recommendations.”

On TikTok, the #BookTok trend has over 44 million posts, while on Instagram, #Bookstagrammer has over 21 million. Do these figures indicate some kind of social pressure to own the books that people are talking about? For Aragón, this is not the case: “As the world moves so fast, you don’t have time to keep up with all the people who tell you: ‘You have to read this book or watch that movie.’ It’s impossible. So, I tend to go a little more by my tastes, recommendations, or crushes in the bookstore itself.”

For several years now, with the emergence of the technology, the presence of digital works has been gaining ground among Spanish readers. So much so that, according to Statista, in 2023 sales of these text formats in Spain reached a turnover of €144 million ($149 million), which represented an increase of 181.6% compared to 2009. Even so, in 2023 just over a third of those surveyed still read only on paper, almost 20% in both formats, and only 8.5% purely in digital. “With the number of novels coming out, there is a lot of tendency for people to say: ‘I don’t have space,’ ‘I don’t have money,’ ‘I can’t keep up.’ So, lately, there is quite a bit of awareness. A slightly more responsible purchase and consumption is being encouraged,” argues Marín about how our consumption habits can change. Although she also qualifies that there are many people who download books and then “never read them.”

Psychologist Lacalle, for her part, compares the storage of digital copies with other similar cases. “The person who stores an e-book, just like the person who stores photos, experiences the same gratification process: the simple fact of thinking ‘I have this.’ I might not look at it, but it gives me peace of mind or satisfaction to know that it’s mine. The visual stimulus is not the same as when looking at a library, but the gratification system is very similar,” she explains.

In some cases, what is sold is not the text itself, but the edition. And even more so if it is presented in an exclusive way. The existence of limited editions, according to Marín, leads consumers to be more impulsive when it comes to buying something they do not need, but that will sell out. “People are encouraged to buy it now, because it’s the right time, so they’re encouraged to accumulate, even if they don’t know if they’re going to read it or not. They buy it with a feeling of great desire, but then they don’t know if they have time,” says the content creator. This phenomenon, known as bibliomania, is different from tsundoku in that volumes are accumulated to collect and not to read.

Owning books can also be emotionally linked to a place or a person, which makes it difficult to part with them. “Whenever I go on a trip somewhere, I take one or two copies with me. When I come back, I usually bring another couple: my friends who I visit are readers and they usually give me some. I can’t resist and something always ends up in my hands,” explains Aragón. According to Lacalle, people give meaning to all kinds of objects: “If someone gives you something, what meaning do you attribute to it? From an emotional point of view, you don’t want to part with what it represents, not the object itself. That’s why it’s so hard for some people to let go of books and they accumulate and accumulate.”

With this desire for possession, it is inevitable that physical space becomes limited or that interest in some already acquired works decreases. This leads many to consider getting rid of certain copies, either through donations or sales. Aragón highlights the significance of taking them to bookstores for social purposes when they take up too much space or you know they will not be read. A position that Marín shares: “If they are in Spanish, I donate them and if they are in English, I sell them online. I’m a firm believer that they should have a second life and I only keep those that I will want to reread.”

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