What I'm reading right now is Darin Strauss's The Real McCoy. Terrific so far, and full of narrative verve. The author is a masterful, assured storyteller.

My reading of Darconville's Cat has been interrupted, alas, because it had to be returned to Interlibrary Loan. Will return to it as soon as I can secure a copy. I'm enjoying it throroughly--Theroux's phrasing is exquisite and worked over to a point where one is either exasperated or delighted (most readers, I hope, will fall under the latter camp), as is his diction. I'm in the middle of a chapter entitled "The Deipnosophists."

So yes: many words and names have been noted, to be looked up when time allows:

pushwailing, sippets, crake, conventicle, Domenichino, Spellvexit, Lords of Pleroma, pannikins, jabot, noil, burgraves, orbilius plagosus, wopsical, baldric, chantepleure, anablept, skipjacks, groutnolls, agraphia, autoscopic, alcibiadean, boffa, thimbleriggers, opsimath, kaleidogyns, batrachian, acumination, gynotikolobomassophile, Simonetta Vespucci, menhir, nainsook, intervenient, cedilla, diaresis, pyrite, Van Der Weyden's lady, pyroballogy, grice, apodictic, dorp, leaves of Vallombrosa, drazels, desuete, pilcrows, terricrepant, bombinate, ikonodule, pteriopes, procinian, Parmigianino (paintings), massebah, suffites, volutes, thalweg, slonks, ignavia, hypocaust, fatamorgana, fucus

There are also two near-Nabokovilian bits: a long bit interjected by a parenthesis: "(knockwurst, picnic)"; and a character called Mona Lisa Drake who reminded me, briefly, of Mona Dahl.