Every time I am back in Japan, I usually find myself wandering the aisles of Kinokuniya bookshop in Osaka, buying a few Japanese paperbacks on what might seem like random subjects. Collectively, these form the ever-growing tsundoku tower of unread books by my bedside and in my messenger bag — books I hope to get around to reading in the near— or long-term future.

Some are of the esoteric type that require a bit of insider knowledge. For example, I recently picked up a controversial debunking of the myths of early Japanese history and a couple of titles on the histories of Kobe and Osaka, two cities close to my heart. In the middle of the hanami (flower viewings) of the spring, I bought a volume on the history of cherry blossoms (perhaps I got a little carried away on rivers of pink fancy).

But for every pocket-sized book I buy on a predictably Japanese theme, I end up with another on a subject where it would seem there is no particular reason to be delving into it via a Japanese author’s perspective. I recently bought an analysis of the problems of the Middle East in Japanese along with a biography of Nietzsche, and then really outdid myself by finding I had emerged from Kinokuniya having just bought “Chiizu no Sekaishi” — “A Global History of Cheese.”