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Tsundoku is the Japanese word for the stack(s) of books you’ve purchased but haven’t read. Its morphology combines tsunde-oku (letting things pile up) and dokusho (reading books).

I personally love that I have a pile of books I have bought but not yet read. Probably for the same reason that others have suggested – that it creates a sense of wonder and excitement there is so much more yet to learn:

These shelves of unexplored ideas propel us to continue reading, continue learning, and never be comfortable that we know enough. Jessica Stillman calls this realization intellectual humility.

People who lack this intellectual humility — those without a yearning to acquire new books or visit their local library — may enjoy a sense of pride at having conquered their personal collection, but such a library provides all the use of a wall-mounted trophy. It becomes an “ego-booting appendage” for decoration alone.

Links:

• https://bigthink.com/neuropsych/do-i-own-too-many-books/
• https://www.bbc.com/news/world-44981013

Here are 9 titles that Elon Musk has said were most influential to his development in life. Compiled by Blinkist:

1. Steve Jobs by Walter Isaacson
2. Human Compatible by Stuart Russell
3. Zero to One by Peter Thiel with Blake Masters
4. Merchants of Doubt by Naomi Oreskes & Erik Conway
5. Life 3.0 by Max Tegmark
6. The Big Picture by Sean M Carroll
7. Lying by Sam Harris
8. Superintelligence by Nick Bostrom
9. The Wealth of Nations by Adam Smith

I think the 90’s were an amazing time for game books. This is one I’ve not seen before. It was a series of paired game books that have a first-person style play.

You play against another person who is playing at the same time with the companion book. Just like in a real first-person shooter, depending on how you (and your opponent) move around, you can come up behind, in front, or to the side of your enemy as you fight against each other in the dungeon.

How does that work? Questing Beast gives us a tour of how this works with the paired set of White Warlord and Black Baron by Joe Dever and Peter Parr.

Joe Dever has allowed these books to be published on the internet and be downloaded free-of-charge.

Other notable authors such as Rob Adams, Paul Bonner, Gary Chalk, Melvyn Grant, Richard Hook, Peter Andrew Jones, Cyril Julien, Peter Lyon, Peter Parr, Graham Round, and Brian Williams have also generously offered similar permission for their contributions. This includes books from famous series like Lone Wolf, Freeway Warrior, Kai, Grand Master, Magnakai, and even some of the Lone Wolf PC games. Project Aon hosts the books on their free website and gives you free permission to use them.

Magic was outlawed in Ethiopia in the 15th century. Presented here and stored in the British Library, is an ancient Ethiopian manuscript with prayers to perform magical transformations (such as turning into a lion or other creatures). Curator Eyob Derillo describes what is in the text and how historians study it to understand ancient African magic beliefs.

Just looking at the text, it appears to be beautifully illustrated. I wonder if you can get downloaded scans…

I’m a huge fan of the Fighting Fantasy book created in 1982 by Steve Jackson and Ian Livingstone. I still have a good collection of them, but my first and favorite had to be Deathtrap Dungeon.

ChrisC has a nice Youtube channel with a few good playthroughs of some of my favorite adventure books. He does a good job on his walkthroughs and is a nice, calming listen. Honestly, I don’t know why more Twitch streamers don’t read old adventure books like this and let people vote on the next choice. Perhaps there’s an idea there…

Back to the topic. My first introduction to the books was as a middle schooler and I can’t tell you how many times I checked out this white-cover Dell version of Deathtrap Dungeon. I soon found the City of Thieves, Warlock of Firetop Mountain, and many others. Before the internet, one had to visit many libraries to find more of them. There is even a great fan site that has lots of details about each book – including interesting errors.

They did a reprint series a few years back, but that has ended as well. The books can still be had on ebay, or if you’re interested in a more professional production, Eddie Marston was hired to do an interactive video series that’s had much higher production values.