The Ume? Handbook: The Complete Guide to the Worlds Most Mysig* City (*approx. pronunciation: MOOSE-sick; approx. meaning: cozier than cozy)

A loving, gently satirical guidebook to a northern Swedish city that exemplifies Swedish "mysig": coziness as a social philosophy.

In moose-filled northern Sweden, under the lights of the aurora borealis, stands a unique city: Umeå, the mecca of mysig. What is mysig? Roughly pronounced "MOOSE-sick", mysig is a Swedish word often translated "cozy" -- but mysig is much more than that. It is a whole way of life, a social philosophy that begins when a mother swaddles her infant in two layers of locally-woven wool-birchprint blankets and continues through a never-changing value system of cooperation and calmness in cheerful schools, an ecological and sporty adulthood, retirement in a red country cottage, and finally to your simple gravestone, covered by snow, invisible for six months of the year.

Have you heard of the Danish concept of coziness called hygge? Mysig is hygge on steroids. Mysig is more than just hygge's cozy atmosphere; mysig is a way of being, that transfuses coziness into your heart and ultimately brings a more profound joy.

The Umeå Handbook is two things: 1) a comprehensive guide to this international university city -- for residents, visitors, and Swedophiles alike -- and 2) an illustration of how mysig plays out in practice. The Handbook's 250 beautifully designed pages -- already completely finished -- are packed with secret information you'll never find online about Umeå; and at the same time, clearly describe how to live a mysig life anywhere on Earth, from Umeå to Utah to Ulaanbataar.