The Japanese have a term, "tsundoku", which refers to the act of acquiring books and letting them pile up without reading them. It's comforting to know this affliction has a name, especially one that sounds more sophisticated than "bibliomania" or "book hoarding".

The books I own say something about the sort of person I am or aspire to be. Those that languish unread speak to resolutions made that have, well, since been shelved. Among them are Jin Yong's Flying Fox Of Snowy Mountain, which I had been meaning to read since the author's death two years ago. I have yet to crack open my copies of Neil Gaiman's The Ocean At The End Of The Lane and Lionel Shriver's The Mandibles, which I'd taken the trouble to get signed at festivals. Charles Dickens' Bleak House sits glumly on my desk, reminding me of something a professor once told me, in mild reproach: "Don't let too many years of your life go by without reading Bleak House."