1
00:00:00,900 --> 00:00:04,450
Teodor Halvorsen: This is The Long Vowel. I'm Teodor Halvorsen.

2
00:00:04,500 --> 00:00:09,550
Odile Marchetti: I'm Odile Marchetti, and I have a confession that fits today's word.

3
00:00:09,600 --> 00:00:18,050
Teodor Halvorsen: Our guest is Kosuke Nakabori, who sells second-hand books in Jinbocho, the book district of Tokyo. Kosuke, the word?

4
00:00:18,100 --> 00:00:24,750
Kosuke Nakabori: Tsundoku. It is written with three characters: to pile up, a small n, and to read.

5
00:00:24,800 --> 00:00:26,750
Odile Marchetti: So, reading by piling.

6
00:00:26,800 --> 00:00:34,850
Kosuke Nakabori: Yes. It's buying books and letting them stack up, unread. Not one book. A tower.

7
00:00:34,900 --> 00:00:36,950
Teodor Halvorsen: Is it a serious word?

8
00:00:37,000 --> 00:00:52,150
Kosuke Nakabori: It started as a joke. There is a phrase, tsunde oku, to pile something up and leave it there. Somebody swapped the last part for doku, reading. It sounds almost the same. So it's a pun that became a word.

9
00:00:52,200 --> 00:00:54,050
Odile Marchetti: How old is the joke?

10
00:00:54,100 --> 00:01:02,850
Kosuke Nakabori: More than a hundred years. It goes back to the Meiji era. People have always bought more books than they could read.

11
00:01:02,900 --> 00:01:06,450
Teodor Halvorsen: You sell the books. Is tsundoku good for you?

12
00:01:06,500 --> 00:01:20,050
Kosuke Nakabori: Very good. But I also buy the towers back. When someone moves house, I get a call. Forty books, the spines still stiff. Some have the receipt inside, as a bookmark, on page twelve.

13
00:01:20,100 --> 00:01:21,150
Odile Marchetti: That's painful.

14
00:01:21,200 --> 00:01:32,850
Kosuke Nakabori: It's not sad, I think. Each book was a plan. Somebody thought, one day I will be the person who reads this. The pile is a list of hopes.

15
00:01:32,900 --> 00:01:36,150
Teodor Halvorsen: Do people in Japan feel guilty about it?

16
00:01:36,200 --> 00:01:46,550
Kosuke Nakabori: A little. But the word helps. If there is a name, it's a habit, not a failure. My customers say, I am doing tsundoku, and they laugh.

17
00:01:46,600 --> 00:01:49,950
Odile Marchetti: My pile is by the bed. Eleven books.

18
00:01:50,000 --> 00:01:55,250
Kosuke Nakabori: That is a small tsundoku. Please come to Jinbocho; we can fix that.

19
00:01:55,300 --> 00:01:57,850
Teodor Halvorsen: Kosuke Nakabori, thank you.

20
00:01:57,900 --> 00:02:04,950
Odile Marchetti: That was tsundoku. Next time, a word from Arabic that only happens with music.