The Wicked Traveler

Respond to Japanese Noh theater like a native: Kazoku sorrote no seppuku ga yokatta. (“I love the part where the whole family disembowels themselves.”) Speak to homicidal Parisian taxi drivers in a language they’ll understand: Ou avez-vous appris à conduire? En Italie? (“Where did you learn to drive? Italy?”) Discuss Italian olive oil with the proper degree of reverence: Un assaggio ti dice che le olive sono maturate di fronte ad una cattedrale. (“One taste tells you the olives grew in full view of the cathedral.”) Establish privacy needs in Mexico: Preferiría una habitación sin alacranes. (“I’d prefer a room without scorpions.”) With seven titles and over 1.2 million copies in print, Howard Tomb’s Wicked phrase book series is the fiendishly irreverent—and very successful—collection that gives travelers the words they wish they could utter while, say, attempting to find the exit of the Louvre or facing a plate of fugu (poisonous blowfish) in Japan. Now, the five most popular Wicked books—Italian, French, Japanese, German, and Spanish— have been updated and compiled into The Wicked Traveler. A$25 value for $8.95, it’s the ultimate impulse gift for anyone who’d like to know how to say silly things in five different languages. Because, as Howard Tomb writes in his new introduction: “Every country is different, but all foreign places have one thing in common: they’re weird.”