EDITORIAL REVIEW: **A divine gift for the word-obsessed—a deliciously eccentric world tour of words that have no English equivalent** The countless language freaks who’ve worn out their copies of *Eats, Shoots and Leaves* will find inexhaustible distraction in *The Meaning of Tingo*. Where else will they discover that Bolivians have a word that means "I was rather too drunk last night and it’s all their fault"? As for *tingo*, on Easter Island it means "to take all the objects one desires from the house of a friend, one at a time, by borrowing them." Organized by themes such as food, the human body, and sex and love, this irresistible book combs through more than 254 languages in search of those gorgeous oddities that have no direct English counterpart—words so strange and apt that if they didn’t exist, they would have to be invented. Highlights from *The Meaning of Tingo*: • **mencomet** (Indonesian): stealing things of small value such as food or drinks, partly for fun • **scheissbedauern** (German): the disappointment one feels when something turns out not nearly as badly as one had hoped • **mono-no-aware** (Japanese): appreciating the sadness of existence • **mahj** (Persian): looking beautiful after disease • **plimpplamppletteren** (Dutch): the skimming of a flat stone as many times as possible across the surface of the water • **koshatnik** (Russian): a dealer in stolen cats • **ava** (Tahitian): wife (but also means whisky)

SUMMARY: From the bestselling author of The Know-It-All comes a fascinating and timely exploration of religion and the Bible.Raised in a secular family but increasingly interested in the relevance of faith in our modern world, A.J. Jacobs decides to dive in headfirst and attempt to obey the Bible as literally as possible for one full year. He vows to follow the Ten Commandments. To be fruitful and multiply. To love his neighbor. But also to obey the hundreds of less publicized rules: to avoid wearing clothes made of mixed fibers; to play a ten-string harp; to stone adulterers.The resulting spiritual journey is at once funny and profound, reverent and irreverent, personal and universal and will make you see history's most influential book with new eyes. Jacobs's quest transforms his life even more radically than the year spent reading the entire Encyclopedia Britannica for The Know-It-All. His beard grows so unruly that he is regularly mistaken for a member of ZZ Top. He immerses himself in prayer, tends sheep in the Israeli desert, battles idolatry, and tells the absolute truth in all situations - much to his wife's chagrin.Throughout the book, Jacobs also embeds himself in a cross-section of communities that take the Bible literally. He tours a Kentucky-based creationist museum and sings hymns with Pennsylvania Amish. He dances with Hasidic Jews in Brooklyn and does Scripture study with Jehovah's Witnesses. He discovers ancient biblical wisdom of startling relevance. And he wrestles with seemingly archaic rules that baffle the twenty-first-century brain.Jacobs's extraordinary undertaking yields unexpected epiphanies and challenges. A book that will charm readers both secular and religious, The Year of Living Biblically is part Cliff Notes to the Bible, part memoir, and part look into worlds unimaginable. Thou shalt not be able to put it down.