What a Wonderful Word: A Collection of Untranslatable Words from Around the World

Sometimes the right word is just a lexicon away. In this compact volume, Edwards introduces words across multiple languages that singularly express particular emotions, concepts, and actions. Uribe accompanies the definitions with gently fanciful scenes and abstract representations. For verschlimmbesserung (“a supposed improvement that makes things worse”), Edwards shares the story of an elderly woman who, in 2012, attempted to repair a 19th-century fresco of Jesus “and made a pretty spectacular mess of it.” In Arabic, the word ishq means “a perfect love without jealously or inconsistency that holds two people together”; Uribe offers a tender image of a couple holding hands. With soft-spoken humor, Edwards conveys how relatable experiences connect human beings across languages and cultures while shedding light on the whimsy (“playfully quaint or fanciful behavior or humor”) and complexity of evolving language. All ages. [em](Sept.) [/em]