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The Geography of Bliss: One Grump's Search for the Happiest Places in the World | 
 enlarge | Author: Eric Weiner
Publisher: Twelve
Category: Book
List Price: $25.99
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Rating:  79 reviews
Sales Rank: 4212
Media: Hardcover
Edition: 1
Pages: 352
Number Of Items: 1
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1.5
Dimensions (in): 9 x 6.1 x 1.4
ISBN: 0446580260
Dewey Decimal Number: 910.4
EAN: 9780446580267
ASIN: 0446580260
Publication Date: January 3, 2008
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Product Description
Part foreign affairs discourse, part humor, and part twisted self-help guide, The Geography of Bliss takes the reader from America to Iceland to India in search of happiness, or, in the crabby author's case, moments of "un-unhappiness." The book uses a beguiling mixture of travel, psychology, science and humor to investigate not what happiness is, but where it is. Are people in Switzerland happier because it is the most democratic country in the world? Do citizens of Qatar, awash in petrodollars, find joy in all that cash? Is the King of Bhutan a visionary for his initiative to calculate Gross National Happiness? Why is Asheville, North Carolina so damn happy? With engaging wit and surprising insights, Eric Weiner answers those questions and many others, offering travelers of all moods some interesting new ideas for sunnier destinations and dispositions. (2007)
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| Customer Reviews: Read 74 more reviews...
 Fun informative read January 12, 2008
MotherLodeBeth (Sierras of California)
74 out of 89 found this review helpful
The author isn't a grump as much as he is an AARP aged skeptic as he sets out to travel the world to see and study people and what makes them happy or unhappy with where they live. Its interesting that Denmark and Singapore are the happiest, and one would assume its because they are small countries, or at least one nationality or race countries.
But it is more apt to be the case that each is a country with a sense of order which everyone is expected to adhere to, as well as non corrupt leaders which gives a sense of security. They are also countries that don't go looking for trouble with other countries and as such each is a peaceful place.
Italy it turns out has the least happy citizens and this is attributed to a country whose leaders can pretty much be assumed to be corrupt or on the take even before elected. When you have leaders in Denmark who make a lot of money, citizens assume they wont need to take money from special interest groups. Ironically in Denmark taxes are over 60% yet citizens know that everyone is treated the same and has the same opportunities.
As to why citizens of Asheville, North Carolina are amongst the happiest here in the states, I think the author is correct, nice weather, affordable housing, lovely scenery, and a slower pace of life, yet an active cultural scene is a major plus. Here in California we have great weather and a plethora of things to do, but so many people have to commute two hours one way, just to afford decent housing that it makes for a lot of stress and stress isn't something that makes one happy. Seattle is a great place, but the grey skies can wreck havoc on a person with seasonal issues like lack of sunshine.
Something of interest as far as the Danes go, is their lack of materialism. No need to keep up with the Jones. Same with citizens of African countries that on the surface are poor by western standards. Yet, happiness came from having a close family whom one knows will be there. The book can teach Americans some valuable lessons and I recommend it big time.
 a rollicking good read! December 26, 2007
Symbiosis (Annapolis, MD)
42 out of 46 found this review helpful
If you're looking for a definitive answer to the book's premise, i.e., that happiness is about place, you might be disappointed. If, however, you are game for a journey about exploring that concept, Eric Weiner's book is for you. At once intelligent and witty, Geography of Bliss takes the reader to unfamiliar places to meet strangely familiar people. That's because the essence of what makes us happy (or unhappy) is basically the same everywhere, alloyed only by our culture and circumstances. It's a book that will make you think and laugh on the same page. And, it might just make you happy.
Interesting and enjoyable January 6, 2008
Julia Flyte (Seattle, WA, USA)
23 out of 25 found this review helpful
This travelogue by self-confessed grump Eric "Whiner" is a yearlong tour of a very unusual assortment of countries (sample: Holland, Qatar, Bhutan and Iceland), most of which have been chosen because they are home to some of the happiest resident populations in the world, (although a couple are chosen to present a contrast). There are some interesting conclusions drawn about what does and doesn't make for happiness, about the importance of democracy and wealth (so revered in the US) and how they are part of the answer but far from being the solution.
Weiner has a lovely turn of phrase (reminiscent of Bill Bryson) and although The Geography of Bliss wasn't as laugh-out-loud funny as I expected (more dryly amusing), it is both immensely readable and packed to the gills with fascinating nuggets of information. Weiner visits two countries that I have spent considerable time in (India and Switzerland), and while I felt his observations of Switzerland were pretty much spot on, I felt that he only scratched the surface of India, a country which I consider to be particularly complex. But I loved his description of Slough in England (the location for the UK TV show "The Office") as "a showpiece of quiet desperation" and I now have even less desire than ever before to visit Moldava which sounds like a hideously depressing place.
Ultimately there are no major revelations in this book, but it makes easy (and thought-provoking) reading and I enjoyed it.
 If a Bryson Wannabe, the Train Hasn't Arrived January 15, 2008
S. Sweeney (Stillwater, MN USA)
23 out of 46 found this review helpful
The ad for this book that appeared in The New Yorker quoted a reviewer (one would presume, even if skeptically) as saying that Weiner "flushed Bryson down the toilet," which I suppose was meant as a sort of high praise of some kind, however inapt. I nearly passed on the book on that basis alone -- the publisher's bad taste in ad design and text -- because I know Bryson's work to be tremendously engaging, laugh-out-loud funny, and spot-on in its details, so that you feel you've been to the places he describes -- AND you've had a great trip. He writes from joy. Weiner writes from anti-joy.
It tires almost immediately. The jokes are borrowed ("There are no atheists on Bhutan roads") or telegraphed far ahead. All he got out of the Netherlands was high (he recommends the Moroccan hashish) -- he passed on the legal prostitution, based on his wife's predictable disapproval of that level of field research -- and we learn of Switzerland that the Swiss are reserved, punctual and sell fine chocolate, and that the Alps are close by. Then we're off to Bhutan, the author not yet having found his grail, Bliss.
After Bhutan, fleshed out with a jibe at Richard Gere's acting, the trek led me to the next book on my list. And I've probably only stopped reading a book midstream -- here at about 100 pages -- about 3 times in my adult life. But I felt I'd pretty much had the plot by then.
Note to publisher: Kill that ad. It's killing you, and it's false advertising. This book is no threat to Bryson.
A superb read December 24, 2007
A. M. Apostolou (Washington DC, USA)
22 out of 24 found this review helpful
Eric Weiner, a well known and amusing journalist, has produced one of the funniest and sharpest books on the market. The search for what makes people happy can easily become an exercise in tedious piety, a too earnest account that reads like an economic research paper. Not so with Weiner, whose deft touch amuses and enlightens, in precisely that order. By taking this wry approach, Weiner is rather more profound than he would concede, and less grumpy than he would like to appear. That is the beauty of "The Geography of Bliss: One Grump's Search for the Happiest Places in the World," it is a very learned and intelligent book that wears its erudition lightly and communicates insights with skill and many wonderful laughs.
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