“The Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows”, John Koenig
Published November 16, 2021
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.
“soufrise
n. the maddening thrill of an ambiguous flirtation, which quivers in tension halfway between platonic and romantic—maybe, but no, but maybe—leaving you guessing what’s going on inside their chest, forced to assume that at any given moment their attraction is both alive and dead at the same time.”
This was a serendipitous find. Sometimes the best book discoveries aren’t planned—they’re the ones that pull you in like gravity. That’s what happened when I spotted The Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows tucked by the till at Capital Books during book club last Saturday. I flipped through a few pages and felt an immediate tug, a sense that this book was speaking directly to me. For reasons I still can’t explain, I didn’t buy it right then. I know. Big mistake—huge! It haunted me through the evening and into Sunday morning until I finally caved and went back to bring that lone copy home that afternoon. I read through as I ate my Chipotle salad bowl for lunch, and even though we had tickets to see Circus Vargas that night, that didn’t stop me from continuing my reading during intermission. That almost-missed connection with the Dictionary made the experience feel fated, like the book chose me. It saw me.
Koenig’s project is a fascinating one: creating words for emotions that don’t yet have names. Or at least obscure names. These are terms for those quiet, complex, deeply human experiences that defy easy description: fleeting nostalgia, unshakable melancholy, the odd ache of longing. It’s less about definitions in a strict sense and more about recognition. The instant I read these words, I felt seen.
The book itself is beautifully bound—small, sturdy black hardcover with gold letters. The interior design is also just as quietly lovely. Throughout the chapters, dreamy achromatic collages from different artists and the author himself accompany longer definitions.
What makes this book truly special is how personal it becomes as you read. I found myself highlighting and scribbling in the margins, which is a big deal, because I never annotate outside of textbooks. Yet something about this collection demanded interaction. This is not a book to rush through; it’s one you sit with, revisit, and return to like an emotional atlas.
The Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows is a work of empathy disguised as a lexicon. Koenig gives language to the ineffable, and in doing so, he reminds us that our deepest, strangest feelings aren’t ours alone. For me, this was more than just a read; it was an experience, one that left its marks not only in my copy full of highlights but in the way I think about naming the unnamable.
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Owned: Capital Books hardcover