Buy, Borrow, or Let It Pile Up: My Honest Take on Book Buying vs. Borrowing

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I have never been particularly tortured by the buy-vs-borrow debate. 

For me, it has always been both, depending on the book, the mood, and honestly, how recently I visited a bookstore. 

But when I started thinking about it more intentionally, I realized my reading life has a pretty consistent rhythm to it — about 60% buying and 40% borrowing — and that ratio didn’t happen by accident.

It also made me think about something I had seen floating around bookish corners of the internet for a while: the Japanese concept of Tsundoku. 

And once I had that word in my vocabulary, a lot of my book-buying habits suddenly made a lot more sense.

Tsundoku: When Books Are More Than Just Books

Tsundoku (積ん読) is the Japanese phenomenon of acquiring books and letting them pile up, often unread, in your home. 

And before you picture chaos — it is not necessarily that. For a lot of readers, including me, it is something much more intentional than it looks.

I genuinely find comfort in a home filled with books and plants. 

My shelves are not just storage; they are part of how my space feels. Walking into a room lined with books makes my home feel like a cozy mini library, and that matters to me separate from whether I have read every single one of them. 

Some books live on my shelf because they are waiting to be read. Others live there because they belong there, because they are part of the atmosphere I want to live in every day.

Naming this with Tsundoku was actually freeing. It reframed what I had sometimes thought of as a slightly guilty habit (why did I buy that if I haven’t read it yet?) into something more honest: books are a part of my lifestyle, not just a reading queue. 

That distinction changes everything about how I approach buying.

Why I Buy

Part of it is just the experience. I love going to bookstores. I love the way they smell, the way time moves differently inside them, the way I always find something I wasn’t looking for. 

Buying a book at a bookstore isn’t just a transaction; it’s an outing, a ritual, a small piece of joy I get to carry home.

That said, I am pretty deliberate about what I actually buy. My general preference is to own books I have already read and loved. 

If a book earned a place on my shelf, it is because I already know it deserves to be there. The exception is series — if I have the first book, I want the rest of them, even if I haven’t gotten there yet. 

There’s something deeply unsatisfying about having an incomplete set.

I also almost always go paperback. Hardbacks can be heavy and clunky, and there is something about a paperback that just feels cozier to hold. 

I don’t care about special editions or fancy covers. I care about the reading experience, and a good paperback delivers that without making my wrists tired. 

Although, I will confess that my worst offense as a book owner is breaking the spine — I like being able to hold a book comfortably while I read, and a stiff spine fights me every step of the way. 

Otherwise, I try to keep my books in great shape. They live on my shelves, and I want them to still look good there.

Thrifting is also a huge part of my buying life. I love finding books I have already enjoyed at a fraction of the price — it gives my Barnes & Noble membership a break, and there is something genuinely fun about the serendipity of it. 

You never know what you’ll find. A beloved book showing up at a thrift store feels a little like it found its way back to you.

Why I Borrow

Here is my honest confession: I almost never physically go to the library. 

The selection is often not aligned with what I want to read, and between that and Libby existing, I genuinely have no reason to leave the house for it. 

Libby has made borrowing so frictionless that it has become my first stop before committing to a purchase. If I can borrow it first, I will.

That said, I support my local libraries fully and without reservation — just from my couch. Libraries matter, full stop. The fact that I access mine digitally doesn’t make it less true.

The Little Free Library is its own category entirely. There is something chaotic and joyful about them. You never know what you’ll find, and the stakes are zero. 

It is borrowing without the app, returning without the deadline, and sometimes discovering something you would never have picked up otherwise.

My general approach: borrow before you buy. If I can try a book through Libby first, I will. If I love it, I’ll find it at a thrift store or pick it up new. But, if it doesn’t land, I haven’t added anything to my shelf that doesn’t belong there.

Buying With Intention: The Values Layer

This is the part of the conversation that doesn’t always come up, but I think it matters. Sometimes where your money goes is part of the decision.

I believe you can separate the art from the artist. I also know that sometimes you can’t, or more precisely, sometimes you don’t want to. 

One example is, Harry Potter. Those are books I grew up with, and that love is real. But I will not buy anything where the proceeds go directly to J.K. Rowling. That’s a line I’ve drawn, and I’m comfortable with it.

What I’ve found is that Pangobooks makes this kind of intentional buying genuinely easy. When you buy or sell on Pangobooks, that money goes directly into the pocket of another reader — not a publisher, not an author you have complicated feelings about, not a corporation. I

 can’t think of a better way to acquire books or pass them along when I’m done. (Not sponsored, I just genuinely love the app and think more readers should know about it.)

It’s a small thing, but buying a secondhand copy of a book through a reader-to-reader platform feels like the right kind of book economy to participate in.

Letting Go of the Guilt

Readers carry a surprising amount of guilt about this stuff. Guilt about buying too many books. Guilt about not reading what they own. There is guilt about borrowing instead of supporting authors. Or guilt about having a TBR that will never, realistically, be finished.

I want to offer a gentle counter-argument: let it go.

I buy books because I love going to bookstores. And I buy books because filling my shelves brings me genuine joy. Mostly, I buy books because a home lined with them feels like the home I want to live in. 

Do I spend too much money on books? Absolutely. Do I also work hard to afford that habit? Also yes. 

Life is short, and even if I never read every book I own, they are a part of my lifestyle outside of reading. They are part of who I am.

Tsundoku isn’t a problem to solve. It’s a way of living with books, and for a lot of us, it’s exactly right.

Final Thoughts

Whether you’re a buy-everything reader, a borrow-first reader, a thrifter, a Libby loyalist, or some messy combination of all of the above — there is no wrong way to get books into your hands. 

The goal is always the same: more reading, more joy, more shelves that feel like home.

I’d love to know where you fall on this. Are you a buyer, a borrower, or firmly in the “yes, both, always” camp? And have you ever let yourself lean into Tsundoku without guilt? Tell me in the comments.

Bought or borrowed some new books? Here are some tips on getting into a good groove with reading.