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(n.) The piling up of newly acquired books or other reading materials for utilitarian (lack of reading time/space/bookshelves), artistic and/or psycho-pathologic (abibliophobia, fetish, OCD, hoarding or addiction) reasons. The tsundoku scale ranging from just one unread item to a serious hoard, just about everyone (except for the most illiterate amongst us) has one. The term dates back to the japanese Meiji era (1868-1912) and literally means 'reading pile'. Formed from the expression 'tsunde oku' (to let something pile up), in which 'oku' was swapped out for 'doku' (to read); the words then got cleverly mushed together.
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