The Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows

by John Koenig

Overview

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER

“It’s undeniably thrilling to find words for our strangest feelings...Koenig casts light into lonely corners of human experience...An enchanting book. “ —The Washington Post

A truly original book in every sense of the word, The Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows poetically defines emotions that we all feel but don’t have the words to express—until now.

Have you ever wondered about the lives of each person you pass on the street, realizing that everyone is the main character in their own story, each living a life as vivid and complex as your own? That feeling has a name: “sonder.” Or maybe you’ve watched a thunderstorm roll in and felt a primal hunger for disaster, hoping it would shake up your life. That’s called “lachesism.” Or you were looking through old photos and felt a pang of nostalgia for a time you’ve never actually experienced. That’s “anemoia.”

If you’ve never heard of these terms before, that’s because they didn’t exist until John Koenig set out to fill the gaps in our language of emotion. The Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows “creates beautiful new words that we need but do not yet have,” says John Green, bestselling author of The Fault in Our Stars. By turns poignant, relatable, and mind-bending, the definitions include whimsical etymologies drawn from languages around the world, interspersed with otherworldly collages and lyrical essays that explore forgotten corners of the human condition—from “astrophe,” the longing to explore beyond the planet Earth, to “zenosyne,” the sense that time keeps getting faster.

The Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows is for anyone who enjoys a shift in perspective, pondering the ineffable feelings that make up our lives. With a gorgeous package and beautiful illustrations throughout, this is the perfect gift for creatives, word nerds, and human beings everywhere.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781501153648
Publisher:	Simon & Schuster
Publication date:	11/16/2021
Pages:	288
Sales rank:	8,854
Product dimensions:	5.00(w) x 7.10(h) x 1.00(d)

About the Author

John Koenig is a video maker, voice actor, graphic designer, and writer. Born in Idaho and raised in Geneva, Switzerland, he created The Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows in 2009, first as a blog at DictionaryofObscureSorrows.com before expanding the project to YouTube. He lives in Minneapolis with his wife and daughter.

Editorial Reviews

PRAISE FOR THE DICTIONARY OF OBSCURE SORROWS AND JOHN KOENIG

"Creates beautiful new words that we need but do not yet have."—John Green, New York Times bestselling author of The Fault in Our Stars

“These aren’t real words, but if crysalism and ellipsism don’t perfectly sound like their meanings, I don’t know what other words would.”—George Takei

“BRILLIANT”—New York Magazine

“Beautiful...amazing.”—Huffington Post

“Its existence feels almost otherworldly, like spells from the mind of J.K. Rowling.”—Upworthy

“Perfect.” —BuzzFeed

“Expressed beautifully.”—Washington Post

“If you’ve been waiting for your daily dose of beautiful, The Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows is going to do the trick for you. The site is a collection of madeup words that perfectly describe some of the most profound feelings human beings are capable of experiencing; words that for whatever reason have not yet been defined by any one term. You may find yourself nodding your head in a meditative state of quiet relation and subtle reverence the longer you scroll down the page. In short, this man’s mind is beautiful.” —Bustle

“Words have the power to transform and make us see the world through a different lens. YouTube host Koenig connects the seemingly unconnectable feelings we as humans experience on a daily basis and puts words to them. Koenig brilliantly finds a way to show, in his new words and their definitions, how we connect to ourselves and one another through feelings and emotions.” —BoDean Warnock, Booklist

"A beautiful little book...Whatever the half-baked, unfinished, yet-to-be-articulated emotion tumbling around in your brain, this book will find a way to name it. Koenig has a cunning ability to parse out emotions in a very specific way and pin them down into actual articulation, both in the word he creates itself and its poetic definition and etymology. There is joy to be found in every nook and cranny of this book.”
—Michigan Daily Review

From the Publisher

03/01/2022

Despite its title, Koenig's first book is not about sadness, nor is it mostly about faulty or funny feelings, like Eden Sher's The Emotionary: A Dictionary of Words That Don't Exist for Feelings That Do. Rather, focused on longing, awareness, and evanescence, it enshrines Koenig's well-regarded blog (of the same title) of invented, repurposed, or obsolescent but redefined words forming a glossary of emotions. Expanding "the palette of language," Koenig finely dissects and names "even the faintest quirks of the human condition." Six chapters provide minimal category structures, with themes including the outer world, the inner world, others, friends, time, and meaning. Koenig offers pronunciation help and wide-ranging, semi-serious etymologies. Some coinages will produce a fond smile (plata rasa: that lulling dishwasher sound); others, wistful or anxious recognition (slipfast: the longing to slide through unnoticed). Entries are usually brief, but some expand into reflective mini-essays (morii: the wish to capture the ephemeral). A couple might elicit a wince, but most are agile, erudite, poetic, clever, even witty (aubadoir: that predawn feeling). VERDICT For philosophers, language lovers, novelists, and fantasists, this perspective-expanding little book offers abundant ambedo ("a momentary trance of emotional clarity").—Patricia D. Lothrop

Library Journal

09/13/2021

Koenig (Charismata) brings his website of the same name to the page in this whimsical speculative dictionary of “new words for emotions.” His definitions are broken into six sections: “Between living and dreaming” introduces the word for the longing to quit one’s job for a “simple life” (trumspringa) and for being proud of a scar (scabulous), while “The interior wilderness” covers the desire to care less and relax (liberosis). In “Montage of attractions,” fensiveness is “a knee-jerk territorial reaction when a friend displays a casual interest in one of your obsessions,” and “Faces in a crowd” covers hailbound, the compulsion to wave to strangers. In “Boats against the current,” zenosyne is “the feeling that time is getting faster,” while in “Roll the bones,” elosy is the fear of big life changes. While most are straightforward definitions, some are “featured” and come in the form of essays on the feeling the term is meant to evoke. Unfortunately, Koenig sometimes slips into platitudes (in his entry for alazia, the fear that one can’t change, he writes that “even if it’s true that you’re no longer flexible enough to be anybody, you might be getting strong enough to finally be yourself”). Still, fans of the site will find this appropriately diverting. Agent: Heather Karpas, ICM Partners. (Nov.)

Publishers Weekly