The Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows

“Creates beautiful new words that we need but do not yet have.”

                — John Green, author of The Fault in Our Stars

 

The Book - NOW AVAILABLE FOR PRE-ORDER!

Book cover design by John Koenig It's finally here. 12 years in the making, 300 pages, 70% new material, including longer video-like definitions, otherworldly illustrations, and some thoughts on language and the meaning of life.

Pre-order your copy here (click links on the right): https://www.simonandschuster.com/books/The-Dictionary-of-Obscure-Sorrows/John-Koenig/9781501153648

Coming November 16, 2021 from Simon & Schuster.

 


The Author

John Koenig is a video maker, graphic designer, and voiceover artist from Minnesota, who lives in Minneapolis with his wife and daughter. His work has been acclaimed by New York Magazine, The Washington Post, The Huffington Post, and the guys from Radiolab.

Feel free to write me directly and describe an emotion you need a word for:

    ▸   Email the author at obscuresorrows@gmail.com

    ▸   Visit the Facebook page

    ▸   Follow on Twitter

    ▸   Ask on Tumblr

 


The YouTube Series

Written, edited, coined and narrated by John Koenig.

 


Inquiries

Copyright © John Koenig 2009-2021. For permissions, inquiries and media requests:

    ▸   Email the author at obscuresorrows@gmail.com.

ambedo 
n. a kind of melancholic trance in which you become completely absorbed in vivid sensory details—raindrops skittering down a window, tall trees leaning in the wind, clouds of cream swirling in your coffee—briefly soaking in the experience of being alive, an act that is done purely for its own sake.

opia
n. the ambiguous intensity of looking someone in the eye, which can feel simultaneously invasive and vulnerable—their pupils glittering, bottomless and opaque—as if you were peering through a hole in the door of a house, able to tell that there’s someone standing there, but unable to tell if you’re looking in or looking out.

nodus tollens

n. the realization that the plot of your life doesn’t make sense to you anymore—that although you thought you were following the arc of the story, you keep finding yourself immersed in passages you don’t understand, that don’t even seem to belong in the same genre—which requires you to go back and reread the chapters you had originally skimmed to get to the good parts, only to learn that all along you were supposed to choose your own adventure.

keta /KAY-tah/
n. an image that inexplicably leaps back into your mind from the distant past.

From The Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows. Written, edited, and narrated by John Koenig. 

liberosis

n. the desire to care less about things—to loosen your grip on your life, to stop glancing behind you every few steps, afraid that someone will snatch it from you before you reach the end zone—rather to hold your life loosely and playfully, like a volleyball, keeping it in the air, with only quick fleeting interventions, bouncing freely in the hands of trusted friends, always in play.

For a million years we’ve watched the sky
and huddled in fear.
But somehow you still find yourself
quietly rooting for the storm.

As if a part of you is tired of waiting,
wondering when the world will fall apart
—by lot, by fate, by the will of the gods—
almost daring them to grant your wish.

But really you can wish all you want,
because life is a game of chance.
And each passing day
is another flip of the coin.

Who could blame us for wanting to be there when it lands?

vemödalen

n. the frustration of photographing something amazing when thousands of identical photos already exist—the same sunset, the same waterfall, the same curve of a hip, the same closeup of an eye—which can turn a unique subject into something hollow and pulpy and cheap, like a mass-produced piece of furniture you happen to have assembled yourself.

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