Photo/Illutration Bookshelves at the Suita city library in Suita, Osaka (Asahi Shimbun file photo)

Let’s say there are bookworms. In what situations do you think they become the most active?

Would it be a classroom in early spring, where they have taken a step forward to face new challenges? It might make them feel like they can absorb anything.

It is also difficult to exclude well air-conditioned trains on hot summer days.

There was a poem by Yuki Wada published in The Asahi Shimbun’s Asahi Kadan tanka section that went to the effect: “I had a rare sighting on a train/ Nap-phone-book-book-phone-nap-book/ Usually, it’s nap-phone-nap-phone-phone-phone-nap.”

I can clearly imagine three passengers reading books as they are being rocked gently side to side, sitting on a seven-person seat and sandwiched by four others who are either dozing off or using a smartphone.

But I must say nothing can beat reading a book in the crisp and clear autumn air.

As this year’s Reading Week started, I walked around the other day in Tokyo’s Jinbocho district, known for its many specialty secondhand bookstores, when it was bustling with people attracted to the annual used book fair there.

It is an event particularly entertaining for book lovers, but it also requires them to make difficult choices.

You might have a chance encounter with a book when you casually peek into one of the stalls lining the streets. Just like a kid in a candy store, while seeing books one after another, you must fight your desires.

And even if you have bought a book, it doesn’t mean you can instantly read it.

At home, I have unread books piling up even beside my bed. I also want to reread books because I can find different things I didn’t see before.

But now that I’m in my 50s, I will probably die of old age before I can finish rereading all the books I have read since I was in my 20s.

Oh, how disappointing it is.

But I succumbed to desire and bought four books at the fair.

As I was turning the pages of one of them, I came across what Arthur Schopenhauer said as he criticized overspending.

“Buying books would be a good thing if one could also buy the time to read them in,” the German philosopher said.

His words struck me.

Reading is such a difficult and entertaining thing to do.

--The Asahi Shimbun, Oct. 29

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Vox Populi, Vox Dei is a popular daily column that takes up a wide range of topics, including culture, arts and social trends and developments. Written by veteran Asahi Shimbun writers, the column provides useful perspectives on and insights into contemporary Japan and its culture.