Twenty-Eight Paper Bodies: Tsundoku and Project 24

Unread? Five.

 

I think Simon Thomas (Stuck in a Book) first mentioned ‘Project 24’—which I read about recently through Brian Busby, of THE DUSTY BOOKCASE—in 2010; he has attempted it, on-and-off (yearly), around four times since then. Project 24 is a self-imposed book-buying challenge (or ‘fun experiment’); one year, twenty-four books, caveats and exemptions allowed. Busby's ‘carve-out’ excluded purchases from a ‘certain charity shop’ that he frequents. Books bought, for example, as gifts for others, similarly, don't count. Thomas' blog is very reading orientated; still, I'm not clear what the appeal would be for the voracious reader, never mind the collector of books.

 

Thomas' original motivation seems to have been, in part, the sight of books piling up unread. It made me think about the relationship between my own book-collecting and book reading; acquiring to collect, and acquiring to read. Unread book piles are a feature. The ideal is a book that fulfils both: a beautiful, collectable book with new content (to be read carefully). But this is (increasingly) less frequently encountered with, for example, Tolkien. With most single author or single title collectors the text has already been read. One can, of course, re-read.

 

There have always been people who acquire more books than they can read; there is also a long history of observing and defending the accumulation of unread books. In Japan they have a word for it: tsundoku. I'm also reminded of a quote that I read recently, on one of Douglas A. Anderson's (many) blogs, which touched upon this. ‘In praise of bibliomania’ describes the behaviour of those of us who are rather lost (or ‘lonely’) without our ‘crowd of paper bodies’; the comfort of being surrounded by books, read or unread. The original article (that Anderson quotes) can be found here.

 

I don't normally count—I didn't attempt the Project 24 challenge—but how many books did I buy in 2025? If we were to exclude copies of The Silmarillion (my possible carve-out!), what would we be left with? Here follows a list of my purchases (in order) from last year.

 

1. ITALIC QUARTET, Dreyfus.

N.p. [Cambridge University Press] 1966.

 

2. THE BATTLE OF MALDON | TOGETHER WITH THE HOMECOMING OF BEORHTNOTH BEORHTHELM'S SON | AND ‘THE TRADITION OF VERSIFICATION IN OLD ENGLISH’, Tolkien.

HarperCollins 2023 Deluxe Edition.

 

3. TOLKIEN'S MODERN READING: MIDDLE-EARTH BEYOND THE MIDDLE AGES, Ordway.

Word on Fire Academic 2021.

 

4. THE BOOK PRODUCTION WAR ECONOMY AGREEMENT, N.a.

The Publishers Association 1942.

 

5. FARMER GILES OF HAM, Tolkien.

GA&U/HMCO 1966 Hb 5th imp.

 

6. THE SILMARILLION, Tolkien.

HarperCollins 2006 Hb 15th imp./CPI.

 

7. THE SILMARILLION, Tolkien.

GA&U-Clowes 1977 Hb 2nd imp./A&U ‘£10.95’ sticker.

 

8. THE SILMARILLION, Tolkien.

HarperCollins 2006 Hb 1st imp./L.E.G.O.

 

9. DUMMY / PUBLISHER’S SALESMAN’S SAMPLE [THE SILMARILLION], Buskirk.

Liver Pizza Press 2018 / POD [2025].

 

10. THE SILMARILLION, Tolkien.

GA&U-Clowes 1977 Hb 1st imp./Pre-publication Dummy copy [Currey ‘dummy A’].

 

11. THE SILMARILLION, Tolkien.

HarperCollins 2006 Hb 21st imp./CPI.

 

12. BORDERLANDS AND OTHERWORLDS, Valentine.

Tartarus Press 2025, signed.

 

13. KUNG SALOMO OCH MOROLF, Levertin.

Albert Bonniers 1922.

 

14. BLAND ÖDEKYRKOR OCH GAMLA GÅRDAR, Enström.

Gotlands Allehandas 1921.

 

15. THE SILMARILLION, Tolkien.

HarperCollins 2006 Hb 18th imp./RR Donnelley.

 

16. THE SILMARILLION, Tolkien.

HarperCollins 2006 Hb 19th imp./RR Donnelley.

 

17. THE SILMARILLION, Tolkien.

BCA 1994 Hb 1st imp./Hartnolls.

 

18. THE SILMARILLION, Tolkien.

GA&U-Clowes 1977 Hb 2nd imp. [Inc. orig. 17.SEP.77 Cardiff receipt].

 

19. THE SILMARILLION, Tolkien.

HarperCollins 2006 Hb 12th imp./RR Donnelley.

 

20. THE SILMARILLION, Tolkien.

BCA 1994 Hb 1st imp./Hartnolls [Upgrade].

 

21. PASTONCHI | A SPECIMEN OF A NEW LETTER FOR USE ON THE MONOTYPE, [Mardersteig].

The Lanston Monotype Corporation, n.d. [1928].

 

22. ASYMMETRIC TYPOGRAPHY, Tschichold.

Reinhold Publishing Corporation 1967.

 

23. IL SILMARILLION, Tolkien.

Milan: Club degli Editori 1979 Hb 1st imp.

 

24. FARMER GILES OF HAM, Tolkien.

Thomas Nelson & Sons [1962].

 

25. THE SILMARILLION, Tolkien.

HarperCollins Large Print Ed. 2025 Pb 1st imp.

 

26. THE UNCERTAINTY OF ALL EARTHLY THINGS, Valentine.

Tartarus Press 2025.

 

27. THE SILMARLLION, Tolkien.

Purchased Dec.—uncatalogued (Russian Ed. 1993).

 

28. THE LIBRARY OF THE LOST, Dobson.

Caermaen Books / Tartarus Press 2015.

 

Twenty-eight books in total. Fifteen copies of The Silmarillion (or related), plus thirteen other titles, including two copies of Farmer Giles. I'd already read Maldon. Every copy of The Silmarillion at this point is acquired purely as a ‘collectable’ copy; there were a few foreign editions in there, a new edition (the Large Print Ed.), ‘research’ copies, and genuine rarities. I always acquire for a reason, I rarely buy duplicates, although I do occasionally buy ‘upgrade’ copies.

 

The 9 non-Tolkien Books

 

Of the others, two were bought in part as holiday mementos, but primarily for their bindings; I don't read Swedish. Ordway's Tolkien's Modern Reading I hadn't read; it is a decently made standard hardback. The three TARTARUS PRESS titles and Dreyfus' Italic Quartet (the boards of all are shown above) are the only books that truly fulfil the remit of being both books for reading (new content, for me) and beautiful well-made books. The Mardersteig Pastonchi is probably the most interesting book as an object being multiple different sized specimen booklets bound together in hardback; technically a ‘sammelband’ structure, interesting in themselves, printed and bound by the OFFICINA BODONI (Mardersteig).

 

Having not considered a calendar year of book-buying in isolation before, this 2025 list turns out to be lacking in real surprise; I certainly bought less ‘collectable’ books last year than in previous years. I bought less new reading material, too; one of the advantages of piles of unread books is that one doesn't have to. Somewhat related, I recently added a Reading List page to this blog (previously recorded in a notebook); the list is lightly curated, but not terribly. This is not directly related to my book-buying, as I frequently sit on new-content purchases for months (sometimes years!) before reading.

 

In any case, under no circumstances was I passing up the opportunity to buy that Dobson volume for under £50 in December, Project 24 or no Project 24. Book deprivation, no thanks.

 

Also on SILMARILLION MINUTIAE

❆ Reading List

❆ Acquisitions