Get an unread-books bookcase
the joy of accommodating ‘too many’ books 2025-12-30 #books #reading
- Unread books
- Unread bookcase ←
- Curating unread books
People who really like reading books sometimes worry about buying new books before they finish reading the ones they already have. Sensible readers reject unnecessary self-inflicted guilt, and instead give themselves permission to accumulate unread books.
In practice, permission to increase the number of unread books leads to escalating book accumulation. You can rationalise book acquisition as having options for what to read next, but this also establishes book acquisition as its own hobby. A hobby with storage requirements.
The bedside table problem
Unread books typically form a growing pile on your bedside table. When you have a bedside book queue, you can stay up late to finish a book, and then fall asleep with the comfort of knowing that your next book lies within arm’s reach. But now you have a bedside table problem: it hides new books from view.
Unread books deserve a shelf where you can see them waiting patiently for attention. Every day, the anticipation of starting to read them will either motivate you to finish your current book, or encourages you read several in parallel (we don’t judge).
Embracing tsundoku
Giving yourself permission to have unread books solves the wish list problem. Adding permission to enjoy having them may enable a new hobby: tsundoku – enjoying book accumulation without reading them.
Tsundoku may sound extreme, but as a thought experiment, it adds perspective to the luxury problem of ‘too many’ books. After all, other hobbies risk costing far more money and storage space, such as collecting fine wine, Lego sets, hi-fi equipment, cars, etc. Books remain relatively inexpensive, and fit neatly on shelves.
Why you need an unread-books bookcase
Even if you reject tsundoku (because you will definitely read every book you get), embracing the possibility prepares you for needing a whole unread-books bookcase after all. In theory, a small shelf would do, because a dozen books would give you enough options for what to read next. In practice, you’ll always want more options. You’ll need more than one shelf, especially if you can’t think of an acceptable way to get rid of books that you won’t read after all. (I can’t.)
If you accumulate unread books and like it, you’ll end up with enough to fill a bookcase. Once you have a whole unread-books bookcase, going back to only buying a book once you’ve read the ones you’ve got sounds as unhinged as only having one thing to eat in the kitchen, and only buying something to eat when you don’t have any food left.
Book-abundance problems
An unread-books bookcase brings you the joys of anticipation and choice. It also brings new ways to overthink reading books:
- the reading focus problem – reading three books at a time (or worse), and the return of the beside table stack
- the curation problem – standing in front of the unread books bookcase and realising that your choices lack any coherent reading strategy framework or book prioritisation method
- the acquisition problem – spending too much money, too often, on too many books
- the inventory management problem – failing to keep track of books you own, but haven’t read yet, and ending up with duplicate unread books.
Fortunately, if any of these problems overwhelm you, you can always escape into a good book.
