Bookshelf

My mother introduced me to Jane Austen when I was young. It was a combination of Austen's classics that first led me through the doors of literature, a foundational love for reading I am still grateful for, one that has shaped the way I read and the way I write.

What began as a silly idea, what if I bought one edition at every bookstore I visited on my travels, turned into a collection. It has since acquired co-conspirators, people who find me a new edition on their own travels and bring it back. This little movement means I always chart a course for a bookstore in every new city or country, which has its own way of opening doors, to neighbourhoods, to conversations, to an ever-growing pile of books waiting to be read.

English lacks a word for this particular affliction. The Japanese, more sensibly, do not — they call it tsundoku (積ん読), the gentle art of letting books pile up unread. Check out some of my favourites that made it out of the TBR.