Most people who love books recognise this pattern. You’re walking past a bookstore. Not even planning to stop. Just passing through, maybe checking your phone, maybe thinking about something else entirely. And then, almost annoyingly, something tugs, a nudge. Go in for a minute.

You tell yourself it’s harmless. You won’t buy anything. Just a quick look.

Five minutes later, you’re holding a book. Then another. You flip a few pages, read a line or two, feel that strange spark, like this might matter. You don’t know why yet. Doesn’t matter. You carry it to the counter anyway.

Later, at home, you glance at your shelf. It’s… crowded. Uneven stacks, books leaning into each other like they’re tired. Some you’ve read. Some halfway through, bookmarks frozen in time. Others still crisp, untouched. Waiting.

And you think, almost ceremonially, this year I’ll do it properly. Twelve books. One a month. Reasonable. Clean. Disciplined.

Life, of course, has other plans.

Weeks blur. Work stretches. Evenings shrink. The books stay where they are. But somehow, that doesn’t stop you from buying more. It’s not exactly logical. It’s not even entirely about reading.

Because buying a book isn’t always about finishing it. Sometimes it’s about who you were when you picked it up. What you were trying to figure out. What felt just out of reach. Each book becomes a kind of timestamp, a record of a question you once had, or a version of yourself you haven’t fully understood yet.

The urgency fades. It always does. But the book stays.

Stacked. Waiting. Patient in a way people aren’t.

And if you’re honest, you’ve probably had that moment, standing in a store, holding a book, thinking, Do I need this? Will I actually read it? Is this just going to sit on my shelf?

…and still buying it.

There’s a Japanese word for it. Tsundoku. The habit of acquiring books and letting them pile up, unread.

But it doesn’t really feel like neglect. Not quite.

After all, some of the most formidable readers in history weren’t minimalists about books. B R Ambedkar, for instance, built a personal library of over 50,000 books. Fifty thousand. It wasn’t about finishing every single one in some orderly sequence. It was about surrounding himself with ideas, arguments, histories, possibilities. A living, breathing archive of curiosity.

Seen that way, an overcrowded shelf doesn’t feel like failure. Not everything is read, but very little feels unnecessary. A personal library, however modest, becomes something else entirely. Not a checklist. Not a measure of how much you’ve read.

But more like a map. Of who you’ve been. Of........

© The Better India