I have a lot of 'abandoned' readings, but I always at least read the first chapter, skim over it, and check for some summaries. I think it's good when reading a non-fiction book to always skim over the whole book first and have a clear goal/motivation.
I don't read much fiction lately, but I assume lack of time is the main factor, except some exceptional books that have the effect of tv shows, where you can't wait to read what happens next and suddenly you find the time at the expense of other activities, e.g. reading until 3 am.
“Tsundoku,” the Japanese Word for the New Books That Pile Up on Our Shelves
51–60 of 87 posts
Re: “Tsundoku,” the Japanese Word for the New Books That Pile Up on Our Shelves
#52[deleted]
Re: “Tsundoku,” the Japanese Word for the New Books That Pile Up on Our Shelves
#53I've been building a web app to manage this, among other things. As of right now, I have 184 things in the pile. Books, Steam Games, (most from Humble Bundles) movies. I figure if I go through one every two days, it'll take me a year to go through the current list. Every time I load the page, it gives me a random item on the list.
Books aren't that big of a time investment when you realize that very few of them are really worth reading all of. I don't feel any qualms about putting one down halfway through. Once I feel like reading more would be masochistic, I click 'finished' and then find something else to do with my time.
Re: “Tsundoku,” the Japanese Word for the New Books That Pile Up on Our Shelves
#54Wonder what's the word for games bought but never played. ;)
Or generically how about a word to describe a customer that buys your stuff, but never opens it? I have been thinking of kickstarting a board game where there will be 500 boxes, 499 contain blank stuff, 1 contains the stuff with the printing materials etc. As long as you leave your copy shrink wrapped yours might be the really valuable one.
Maybe tsumigomi (gomi means garbage, so that'd imply a strong bias against collecting too many things), or perhaps tsumimono (stuff/things that stacks up)?
Re: “Tsundoku,” the Japanese Word for the New Books That Pile Up on Our Shelves
#55Sadly I use my brower tabs as my Tsundoku... I keep them open for months and even years.
Re: “Tsundoku,” the Japanese Word for the New Books That Pile Up on Our Shelves
#56Sadly I use my brower tabs as my Tsundoku... I keep them open for months and even years.
Is this sarcasm/a joke? I can't keep firefox or chrome open for more than week without it running up 4GB RAM utilization.
Re: “Tsundoku,” the Japanese Word for the New Books That Pile Up on Our Shelves
#57I go through reading phases where I blow through book after book voraciously, but somehow my Tsundoku increases simultaneously. Then I go off reading for a while and, when I come back on, I ignore my Tsundoku and start reading entirely different books instead. Just as there are Steam games I'll eventually play and games I've bought but will probably never play, I have Tsundoku that have been around for a very long time and will probably remain as such forevermore. It almost seems like we need a word to describe books that, at one point, seemed like a good idea to buy but which we'll never realistically get around to reading.
I'd also like a word for books that I just can't get through, for no good reason. I think I've started reading Hemingway's "For Whom the Bell Tolls" half a dozen times but this book inevitably puts me off reading for a while.
Re: “Tsundoku,” the Japanese Word for the New Books That Pile Up on Our Shelves
#58Sadly I use my brower tabs as my Tsundoku... I keep them open for months and even years.
I have the same problem. Then there are so many tabs and I have to use a Chrome extension to automatically save and close inactive tabs. Guess I should set some time to look at that limbo place.
Re: “Tsundoku,” the Japanese Word for the New Books That Pile Up on Our Shelves
#59Sadly I use my brower tabs as my Tsundoku... I keep them open for months and even years.
Is this sarcasm/a joke? I can't keep firefox or chrome open for more than week without it running up 4GB RAM utilization.
On chrome there is a setting to resume where you left off and reopen all the tabs. Also ctrl+shift+t, or the recent tabs menu opens them.
Then there are extensions that let you save open tabs, like session budy. Or just regular bookmarking.
Having lots of tabs open isn't really in issue for some reason. I think it saves tabs that haven't been looked at for 10 minutes to disk.
Re: “Tsundoku,” the Japanese Word for the New Books That Pile Up on Our Shelves
#60once again im impressed by the expressiveness of the japanese language:) Since i have almost all my books at my kindle at least i dont have to dust them regulary:D
Japanese tends to be a lot more "conglomerative" than English, presumably because it has kanji—which are little self-contained nuggets of meaning—as one of its fundamental units. Many words are formed by cramming together smaller meaningful parts, with the result being still fairly concise.
In addition to the benefits for creating new words, this is a huge help in reading unfamiliar words: even if you don't know all the nuances, you can often get the basic meaning of an unknown word from the meanings of its component parts.
[This is true of kanji themselves as well... kanji are (essentially) conglomerations of simpler kanji, and you can get some (very rough) idea of the meaning and pronunciation of an unknown kanji by looking at its parts.]