The Geography of Bliss: One Grump's Search for the Happiest Places in the World

The Geography of Bliss: One Grump's Search for the Happiest Places in the World | Eric Weiner | The quest to find happy people

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The Geography of B...

	The Geography of Bliss: One Grump's Search for the Happiest Places in the World Eric Weiner Twelve, 2008 - 352 pages average customer review:based on 81 reviews view larger image
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highly recommended

Terrific Book

I checked The Geography of Bliss out from the library and after a few pages, decided I needed to own it. I bought the book and savored every page.

Eric Weiner is hilarious and an excellant writer and thinker. Weiner spends a year trying to figure out how cultural differences affect the happiness of people in a variety of countries.

Weiner tells a great story while revealing the human condition.

For example: "Several studies...have found that trust--more than income or even health--is the biggest factor in determining out happiness."

"The God Ambition is a false God and always has been."

In Iceland, people are happy becuase they don't envy others and there is no stigma associated with failure.

"People are not likely to be happy if they don't have control over their lives--not in some abstract, geopolitcal sense, but in a real, everyday sense. Moldovans are caught in a misery loop. Their unhappiness breeds mistrust, which breeds more happiness, which leads to more mistrust."

In Thailand,people are happy because they don't think too much. Weiner writes: "Thais are deeply suspicious of thinking."

Weiner's voice was what made the book so endearing. He manages to be funny, insightful and always real.

By the author of the award winning book, Harmonious Environment: Beautify, Detoxify and Energize Your Life, Your Home and Your Planet

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The quest to find happy people

Eric Weiner's "The Geography of Bliss: One Grump's Search for the Happiest Places in the World" chronicles the author's journey to find the place where the people are the happiest an also where the people are the least happy. Weiner traveled to Switzerland, Bhutan, Great Britain, Qatar, Thailand, and India to understand the level of happiness in people. By contrast, he went to Moldova and that was the country where the people are the least happy. Contrary to what we think, wealth does not equal to happiness and neither does cultural diversity.

The premise of the book is fascinating. It was interesting to read about how people in Iceland are happy even though the weather is not necessarily welcoming due to the limited daylight. The author also touched on the different concept of happiness and how it was viewed differently by different countries. Weiner ended the book with the United States and he noted that people in Asheville, North Carolina are relatively happy. This wasn't as engaging as I hope it would be, but it was still an interesting read.

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Good, but uneven, book

As stated elsewhere, the book is a very smart and amusing look at a variety of locations in search of happiness. I thought the chapters where the author explored a new country were quite good, but his accounts of locations with which he was more familiar were less animated. Overall a good and thought-provoking read.

Entertaining read

I haven't finished reading this book yet, but so far it's been a very entertaining read, though no great insights into happiness. That's not to say there aren't insights, just nothing revelatory.

Blissfully grumpy

This is one of those books that I won't sit and read cover to cover. I prefer to pick it up and page through it randomly in starts and stops. I am always curious as to what makes people blissful and content. While hopping and skipping thorugh various countries, the author tries to figure out what make the inhabitants happy. I am recommending it to my book club as one of this year's monthly reading selections. Books are what make this curmudgeon blissful, and this book adds blissful variety to a bursting-at-the-seams home library.

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