Customer Rating: 
Summary: Don't Worry! Be Happy!
Comment:
After the self-described "grump" Eric Weiner had roamed the globe for ten years as an NPR correspondent, he wondered what he'd find if he spent a year just traveling from happy country to happy country. Or to not-so-happy country. He wanted to see what makes the people tick. Or be ticked off, as the case may be.
And so he began his journey, resulting in this witty, sharp travelogue of ideas, "The Geography of Bliss."
He set out from Miami to Holland, where there is a World Database of Happiness. The people there are very happy, but Mr. Weiner is not finding bliss in a place where anything goes. He needs freedom from all the freedom. Then again, it's not Moldova.
Switzerland! They have direct democracy and vote seven or eight times a year on large and small issues. The Swiss cantons (states) that had the most democracy were the home of the happiest people. And yet, 21 pages after first entering the country of the clocks with birds, chocolate-eating, efficient, punctual, wealthy Swiss, Mr. Weiner decides that they may not be actually happy but know how to enjoy themselves.
Then we have Bhutan. They have towering mountains, a benevolent king, mystics and an actual government policy of Gross National Happiness. On their houses and throughout the land are painted huge colorful...things...to ward off evil spirits. If I had one of these things painted on the side of my house, the local government would have a collective fit, as would everyone in my town. But the Bhutanians are proud of them. And the people trust each other. Several studies (there are lots and LOTS of studies on happiness) have shown that trust may be the biggest factor in determining our happiness.
Here is Iceland. The very word sounds cold and dreary. In some studies, dark and icy Iceland ranks #1 in happiness. Mr. Weiner's friends told him that in order to understand what makes them tick, he needed to observe them in their natural state: PICKLED. "It's perfectly acceptable to drink yourself comatose on the weekend, but so much as sip a glass of Chardonnay on a Tuesday night and you're branded a lush."
"Creativity," the author states, "is rampant in Iceland." Either in spite of or because of the bleak landscape, the people are poetic and happy.
Tiny Qatar is loaded, but not like the Icelandic people on weekends. It's the wealthiest country on earth. However, the women are covered from head to toe. But they are allowed to drive and vote, so they're more free than women in Saudi Arabia.
Mr. Weiner wants to know what happens if he indulges in "excessive, obscene---truly obscene---amounts of luxury." He and his credit card are determined to find out in Qatar.
About 80% of the people who live there are servants from other countries. Qatarians don't do menial work or even housework. (Sign me up!) (Oh. Wait. I forgot that head-to-toe outfit.)
Everything is free. Water, electricity, health care, education---college students are paid a salary just for being in school. When a Qatar man marries, the government gives him a plot of land, an interest-free mortgage and a monthly allowance of $7,000. And there are no taxes! Are they happy?
On to Thailand. They smile. A lot. Thais accept what happens to them. If things don't work out in this life, there is always the next. The thought of second chances brings happiness. Hope that second chance doesn't involve Moldova.
India is a contradiction. Mr. Weiner has a love and hate relationship with India. Not alternately. Simultaneously. "India does not disappoint. It captivates and infuriates."
But are the billion Indians happy? In yet another study, hundreds of street people in Calcutta were interviewed, as were hundreds of homeless people in Fremont, California.
Calcutta's street people were much more happy than those in California. India's poor have strong social ties. Family. Friends. "No one is really homeless in India. Houseless, perhaps. But not homeless."
If a person in India is poor, fate, the gods or negative karma are blamed. In addition, of course, they don't live in Moldova.
Mr. Weiner's search is over, after tens of thousands of miles. He sums up his thoughts of places and bliss in the Epilogue.
Happiness is reading "The Geography of Bliss." Two pieces of advice: Read this book and STAY OUT OF MOLDOVA.
Customer Rating: 
Summary: Flawed (of necessity) but Deeply Entertaining
Comment: An entertaining book ostensibly about how place impacts happiness. Weiner's approach is far from comprehensive. He draws conclusions on whether certain places are happy based on very brief interactions with two or three people per country; had he selected different interviewees, his judgments may have been completely different. Plus, Weiner visits far too few and quite random locations. So, though it is flawed as serious research, the book is a lot of fun (and serious research doesn't seem to be the point anyway).
Customer Rating:
Summary: A Wonderous Armchair Traveler's Adventure
Comment: Author Eric Weiner makes a Clint Eastwood-esque double dare to the world: Go ahead. Make me happy. Then he sets off on a continent-hopping voyage to see if the source of a person's happiness is the same as the source of good real estate: location, location, location. Is it true that the inhabitants of some countries are happier than those living elsewhere? What makes people universally happy? Are there shared commonalities between the happier places? And what is happiness and how can it be measured? These and many other thought-provoking questions wrestle for attention in Weiner's mind as he jaunts from The Netherlands to Bhutan to Qatar to Iceland and beyond.
Reading The Geography of Bliss is like taking off the year after graduation to go backpacking around the world with the funniest curmudgeon in your class. Eric Weiner is like that freshmen-year roommate who seemed like a total dork at first, but then started to grow on you until he became one of your best friends and most trusted accomplice. With a decade of experience as a foreign correspondent for National Public Radio, Weiner makes the perfect traveling companion. He knows how to find the most unique places to stay, meets the most interesting people, and ends up in the most bizarre circumstances. He's the guy brave enough to sample the local culinary delicacies (Rotten shark meat anyone?). Best of all, he is really hilarious, so you'll spend most of this literary trip cracking up at his snarky observations. For instance, in Switzerland he contemplates the beauty of the Swiss army knife: "If only every army in the world was best known for something like the Swiss army knife. As far as I know, no wars have been waged with Swiss army knives, no international commissions established to discuss their dangerous proliferation." Weiner ruminates on the lack of sunlight in Iceland: "Icelandic darkness is in a category of its own, a stingy darkness that reveals nothing, and if it could talk, would probably do so with a thick New York accent: `Yo, ya gotta problem with Mista Darnkess, bub?'" On his high-speed motorcycle taxi ride through Bangkok: "It smells like everything. Freshly cooked pad thai, freshly cut marigolds, freshly produced human excrement. A feast for the nostrils." If you're looking for a globe-trotting cohort, a finely-tuned and self-depreciating sense of humor would be the number one quality to look for, and Weiner delivers the goods with generosity.
However, like most traveling companions, Weiner does grate on the nerves every now and then. In each chapter, he insists on persistently turning to, as he calls them, "those dead, white, and unhappy philosophers." I found it unpleasantly jarring to go from, say, a cozy London flat sharing wine and interesting conversation with a couple of Weiner's lovely friends to a cold, cerebral lecture on Thomas Jefferson, utilitarianism, and Jeremy Bentham's treatise on "felicific calculus." Despite myself, I often would find the discourses to be intellectually compelling once I gave in to them; however, I wonder if Weiner later went back and inserted his philosophical research into the chapters as a way to add some substantive bulk to the book. Though I'm sure his NPR colleagues were duly impressed by the references to the philosophers Betrand Russell, Alan Watts, and John Stuart Mill, I found myself wishing that Weiner would skip the lectures and get on with the show.
Nevertheless, the journey through this book was highly enjoyable, enlightening, and stimulating. The Geography of Bliss certainly delivers happiness to the reader. You'll be hard pressed to read it without contemplating the state of your own happiness as well as that of your countrymen. Does Weiner ultimately find the happiest place in the world? Of course, I won't spill the beans. But I will leave you with the author's acute observation: "The word `utopia' has two meanings. It means both `good place' and `nowhere.' That's the way it should be."
Quill says: Read it to be entertained or educated. Either way, it's a wondrous armchair traveler's adventure across the globe and into our minds.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Amusing and insightful
Comment: I read this a few months ago. A friend asked me what I read recently and it took me a while but I remembered this book. It made quite an impression on me. If you are an NPR fan, you would probably enjoy this book. It has similar tone, language, cadence and sense of humor. It is casually intelligent and skeptical but insightful and amusing.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Great Book
Comment: I bought this book for a school project about the happiest places in the world and this book was awesome! Reads like a novel. Weiner did a qualitative study on the happiest places in the world starting off with quantitative data from the world's happiness database. If you are looking for a great, informative, and witty book to read then Bliss is the one. If you are looking for more quantitative research on the subject of happiness with charts and citations etc. this book is not going to give that to you. Hope this helps.
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