This week I was cleaning off my desk, and I came across the notes I took while reading A.S. Byatt’s Possession back in April (yes, it took me more than six months to clean my desk). About halfway through the novel, I started writing down all the rare and delightful words that pop up in the text—and ended up with four pages’ worth. I wonder if A.S. Byatt’s everyday speech is peppered with this kind of unusual vocabulary.

Here are some of my favorites:

• carapace
• silex
• besprent
• celandine
• exiguous
• vulpine
• recension
• odylic
• moquette
• aperçu
• hypostatisation

What are your favorite bookish sources for unusual words?