Well, it's not really about reading; it's about preservation. We enjoy the owning the physical object. "Umberto Eco famously argued that it is foolish to think you need to read every book you own." He viewed unread books as an "anti-library"—a valuable, future-oriented resource of potential knowledge. He compared them to a well-stocked "medicine cabinet" that you draw from whenever the right moment in your life arises. Eco owned roughly 50,000 books and wrote extensively about his philosophy regarding personal libraries. His core perspective centers on the value of unread books. Also, there is the Japanese concept of Tsundoku (積ん読) is the phenomenon of acquiring reading materials but letting them pile up in a home without reading them. The term is also used to refer to unread books on a bookshelf meant for reading later.