Tsundoku is a thing of the past. If you count visual novels as part of your backlog, you don't have time to be saying things like that.

Today, I'd like to talk about 'tsundoku'—the habit of buying books and letting them pile up unread.
A publisher I follow posted, 'How many unread books do you have in your backlog?'

Is it just assumed that everyone has one? Is this the inevitable fate of a book lover...?
Seeing the diverse ways other editors have their backlogs piled up makes me feel a bit relieved, thinking, 'Oh, even the pros of books and reading have backlogs.' Do book critics not have backlogs? Maybe they don't have backlogs for work, but do they have them for personal reading?
I feel like you can see a bit of a person's character through the state of their book backlog.

I decided to check what my own backlog situation looks like.
I'm actually not the type to let books pile up that much.
Or rather, when I was younger, I was adamant that a backlog was a 'sinful' collection, and without the famous 'tsundoku indulgence,' I would have to purge my sins in the flames of book burning. Oh, paper... please forgive this mountain of books I've piled up...
And now? I'm piling them up (with clear eyes).

Lately, I read almost exclusively on Kindle rather than paper, so my unread books are piled up on a digital shelf. I'm wondering if I can commit the perfect crime by using the trick that they don't have physical thickness, so they don't count as a 'pile'.
Anyway, looking at my rough folder organization, I have 25 manga, 6 books on education/trivia, 1 horror book, 36 mysteries, 6 sci-fi books, and 5 boys' love books. (It's a bit embarrassing because I can't talk about my bookshelf without BL, but I'm declaring it honestly.)
There are more than I thought. No, maybe this is normal.

I'm sure I have a few paper books at home, too. I remember dancing with joy when I found an out-of-print children's book on Mercari and bought it. When I checked again, there were about 10 books piled up. Children's books are hard to find as e-books, so it can't be helped.

That's not all. I also borrow books from the municipal library, and I have to read those too. And then I have to borrow the sequels next week.
There are also books I snatched up for the backroom because I thought they looked interesting while lending them to students, and in the first place, I have a desire to read all the books in the school library someday.
Isn't this the ultimate evolution of tsundoku? I'm starting to feel like I'm piling up an entire library.

It's not just books that are piling up. There are games, too.
Visual novels, in particular, are things you read. A horror visual novel I bought recently boasted, 'A massive volume of 3 million characters!' But isn't that just a book? Apparently, it's equivalent to dozens of novels. So, that's a backlog, too... I realized.

Thinking about it, I felt a little shudder at the thought that I might already be living with a lifetime's worth of unread text. I watch TV every day, watch YouTube, watch Amazon Prime, jump back and forth between Narou and Kakuyomu for web novels, and I want to look at pixiv, too.
But still, I keep buying them. Because I want to read them. No, I want to pile them up. No, no, I want to read them, I really do.

Reading and piling up are somewhat overlapping.
The very act of wanting to read is like handing a book to your future self.
It's not for now, but something you might read eventually. So, a backlog isn't procrastination; it's a hope for the near future...

Lately, I've stopped feeling guilty about it.
I'll read them someday. I cherish them while they're piled up with that thought in mind. Rather than blaming myself for not reading, I want to believe in the 'me' who wanted to read them.
When you think about it that way, isn't tsundoku kind of romantic? It's a piggy bank of knowledge, a shelf of curiosity, and a fermentation of the desire to read that matures over time.
That's why I'll keep piling them up today. Because I want to read, and I want to pile them up. Well, I do want to read them, though.