The Japanese call the habit ‘tsundoku.’
You enter a bookstore intending to browse for a few minutes. An hour later, you find yourself at the cashier with another stack of books.
Excited about your purchase, you bring your new books home—and place them beside another pile of books that are still inside the paper bag.
And then you remember: You are planning to attend a book festival next week.
For many book lovers, this familiar dilemma has a name: tsundoku, the habit of buying books and not reading them.
The Japanese term recently resurfaced among Filipino readers after a Reddit user shared their midyear sale book haul on the “r/PHBookClub” community. They showed their a stack of newly purchased books with their already full shelves in the background.
“Running out of shelf space…,” they wrote. “[N]ow how do I tell my bf, who funded this haul, to move his playing cards? ”
Despite the lack of space, the user said they still planned to visit another bookstore the following day—and even asked fellow readers for book recommendations.
While some users shared suggestions—and even complimented the durability of the shelves—many admitted to facing the same “problem”: buying more books than they could finish.
“Ang hirap pigilan sarili pag may magustuhan na book. Bibilhin agad,” one user commented. “Dati nakakapagpigil pa ako pero ngayon hindi na. High na high ako pag nakakabili ako ng book ts[a]ka pag nakikita ko sila sa coffee table ng bahay namin.”
In a 2018 BBC article, Andrew Gerstle, a pre-modern Japanese texts professor at the University of London, explained that tsundoku appeared as early as 1879 in print, suggesting that the practice existed long before the word became familiar online.
Gerstle noted that tsundoku does not necessarily carry a negative meaning in Japan.
Still, some readers pointed out that buying books for the sake of it can be excessive to the point of becoming “shallow”—and a way of showing off.
While the original poster acknowledged the reminder, they clarified that it was not their intention.
“I like the comfort [buying books] gives me na when REAL life gets too serious or overwhelming, there’s a story na I can go to,” the poster explained.
Still, the poster thanked them for the nice reminder against excessiveness.
For many readers, tsundoku may be a familiar struggle, but behind every unread stack is the hope that, someday, those books will finally be opened. Or that the stack simply makes room… for more books.
READ:
Some Filipino readers say e-books are enough, but public libraries remain scarce
Allyson Capati
July 9, 2026
More Filipinos cannot afford books, limiting their access to reading
John Lloyd Aleta
June 21, 2026
Global queer library land in PH, offers free books
Julia Escarez
June 22, 2026
