About this item
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.
About the Author
I call myself an "eclectician," by which I mean I've earned my living doing a lot of different things. A journalist for most of my career, I worked as a reporter, columnist and editor on the staff of newspapers and magazines in West Virginia, Ohio, New York and Florida. Along the way, I was also a regular commentator on two radio stations and on-camera host for two documentaries produced by a PBS television affiliate.I went on to be president of a non-profit organization in Orlando, Florida for a half dozen years, before joining a large professional services firm as a senior marketing executive for a couple more. I now live in Austin, Texas, where I work with my wife Barbara in a consulting practice providing marketing services to residential real estate developments across the country.In between this, walking the dog, babysitting our two granddaughters and daydreaming about sailing, I write books. I'm currently at work on my second novel.
