John Koenig

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—from the creator of the popular online project of the same name. 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 began his epic quest to fill the gaps in the language of emotion. Born as a website in 2009, The Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows has garnered widespread critical acclaim, inspired TED talks, album titles, cocktails, and even tattoos. 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, funny, 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, which have far more in common than we think. With a gorgeous package and beautifully illustrated throughout, this is the perfect gift for creatives, word nerds, and people everywhere.

The Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows

Paige Arnold

zielschmnerz n. the dread of finally pursuing a lifelong dream, which re- quires you to put your true abilities out there to be tested on the open savannah, no longer protected inside the terrarium of hopes and delusions that you started up in kindergarten and kept sealed as long as you could.

liberosis n. the desire to care less about things; to figure out a Way to relax your grip on your life and hold it loosely and play. fully, keeping it in the air like a volleyball, with quick and Aeeting interventions, bouncing freely in the hands of trusted friends, always in play.

The Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows is a comnpendium of new words for emotions. Its mission is to shine a light on the fun- damental strangeness of being a human being-all the aches, demons, ibes, joys, and urges that are humming in the back- ground of everyday life:

 trying to improve yourself without anyone else knowing about it, afraid that they'll think it's silly or grandiose or unnecessary, or that they'll end up calling too much attention to your efforts, transforming a casual tweak into a flashy rebranding campaign

Flashover. the moment a conersation becomes real and alive, when a spark of trust shorts out the delicate circuits you keep insulated under layers ofirony, momentarily ground- ing the static emotional charge you've built up through decades of friction with the world.

the sadness of realizing that you're already forgetting sense memories of the departed-already struggling to hear their voice, picture the exact shade of their eyes, or call to mind the quirky little gestures you once knew by heart.

énouement n. the bittersweetness of having arrived here in the future, finally learning the answers to how things turned out but being unable to tell your past self.

The kaleidoscope of your emotions spun wildly through- out the day, all of it intense. You could walk along howling or weeping or grinning like a goon. When you loved someone, vou loved them openly and with abandon, squeezing hugs as hard as you could. When you found something funny, you could laugh so hard your diaphragm ached, your cheeks wet with tears, your temples throbbing. You could plunge into a book and come out gasping, stumble out of a movie looking at faces and colors differently, listen to a song on loop for weeks and feel it grab you by the throat every time. And you knew how to play, knew how to make your toys come alive in front of you, how to listen for their weird little voices.

keep n. an important part of your personality that others seldom see — a secret flaw, a hidden talent, trauma that never comes up, dreams you never mention — that remains a vital part of who you are even if nobody knows it's there, like the sprawling archives in the attics of museums, packed with works far too priceless to risk being displayed for the public. From a keep, the innermost tower of a castle.

daguerreologue n. an imaginary conversation with an old photo of yourself, in which you might ofer them a word of advice — to banish your worries, soak it all in, or shape up before it's too late — or maybe just ask them if they thought you had done justice to the life they built for you. From daguerreotype, a form of early portrait photography + dialogue. Pronounced "duh-gair-uh-lawg.”

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