Tsundoku confession

Last weekend I went to a bookstore and walked away with more titles to add to my ever-growing pile. On returning home I sat down with a cup of tea and cracked the spine on a new novel. After a few pages I looked over at a towering pile of books I have prioritised to read, have started but not yet finished, or have borrowed from my local library and need to complete before a rapidly approaching return date. I immediately put down my new novel to reflect on my circumstances.

Clearly I am suffering from a bad case of Tsunduko - the Japanese term for acquiring books without reading them. To be honest, this is a lifelong condition. My home is a hoarder's delight when it comes to books - bookshelves overflow and the excess are stacked in tidy piles in every nook and cranny. I used to reorder the books on a regular basis - alphabetically, Dewey decimal, thematically - but once my shelves became layers deep they have ended up orderless. Despite the seemingly random display, I know where to find everything...

I usually have at least two books on the go - an at-home read (physical) and a commute read (electronic). Generally I read one fiction and one non-fiction concurrently. But ever since I dropped everything in September to read Atwood's The Testaments, I am at varying stages of:

• Speaking Up by Gillian Triggs (update: read review)
• Bruny by Heather Rose (update: read review)
• I Like to Watch by Emily Nussbaum (update: read review)
• Talking to Strangers by Malcolm Gladwell
• The Library Book by Susan Orlean
• David Copperfield by Charles Dickens
• The Secret Commonwealth by Philip Pullman
• Everything Under by Daisy Johnson 

Plus I have a stack of books I am keen to get in to and I am several blog posts behind in books I have actually finished. So, I need to stop pretending I can multitask and focus. I am going to put aside Pullman and Gladwell until 2020, and concentrate on finishing the others. Watch this space!