<p>IF YOU HAVEN&rsquo;T YET LEARNED THE DEFINITION OF&nbsp;HYGGE, don&rsquo;t sweat&mdash;the world will have moved on twice before you do.</p>

- Lucy Feldman

Thanks to concepts like hygge, lykke and lagom, bookstore browsing has become an exercise in translation, with more and more covers boasting foreign catchphrases as prescriptions for a new and happier lifestyle.

Following the outsize success of The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up, Japanese author Marie Kondo’s decluttering book that has sold 8 million copies worldwide, publishers are scouring the globe for similar hits. Drawing material from the Nordic countries, there’s a host of titles on hygge (the art of cozy living), lagom (the pursuit of balance) and now lykke (joy) as well as an end-of-life tidying manifesto on dostadning, or “death cleaning.” Publishers are chasing their tails for repeat Kondo performances in an industry that is rarely able to predict hits, but readers seem happy to buy in for now.

Kondo stirred an unexpected fervor with her pocket-size guide to the KonMari method, a way of unburdening your life by streamlining your possessions. Since the U.S. release in 2014, the professional organizer has followed up with two more, Spark Joy: An Illustrated Master Class on the Art of Organizing and Tidying Up and The Life-Changing Manga of Tidying Up. Hygge (sounds like “HOO-gah”), a concept from Denmark often described as “conscious coziness”—think candles, hot drinks and fluffy socks—arrived in stores next. Dozens of hygge books, from coffee-table tomes on dr