The Geography of Bliss

One Grump's Search for the Happiest Places in the World

By: Eric Weiner

Narrated by: Eric Weiner

Length: 11 hrs and 4 mins

Publisher's summary

Part travel memoir, part humor, and part twisted self-help guide, The Geography of Bliss takes the listener across the globe 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?

In a unique mix of travel, psychology, science and humor, Eric Weiner answers those questions and many others, offering travelers of all moods some interesting new ideas for sunnier destinations and dispositions.

©2008 Eric Weiner (P)2008 Hachette Audio

Critic reviews

"In the end, Weiner's travel tales - eating rotten shark meat in Iceland, smoking hashish in Rotterdam, trying to meditate at an Indian ashram - provide great happiness for his readers." (Publishers Weekly)

Perfect balance: thoughtful insight & sharp humor

Listened to this at height of COVID 19 pandemic and while stuck at home. It is a perfect alternative to travelling.

Charming and a lot of fun

Eric gets me. I'm sad that this is the last audiobook of his currently. Lots of memorable takeaways.

Good read for those interested in the study.

For reading his own book he didn't seem to thrilled about it.....now that I think about it
....perhaps he wanted to set the persona that he wasn't all to happy of a person which is why he remained monotone. At least in my opinion. loved the story though Eric!

Excellent Read

This was actually a required book to read for my English 101 class. I am happy to share that I enjoyed this book. Wiener presents the book in a way that is relatable to his readers and I enjoyed his sense of humor. Wiener gives his readers a lot to think about. I look forward to reading his other book.

Meh

A story of a guy spending a year traveling around the world and asking people if they’re happy and why.

Wonderful

This book is extremely captivating and informative. I highly recommend it to any that wonder.

Geography of Bliss

The author has a good narrative voice, so I found myself looking for little chores to do so I could keep listening. The subject matter was interesting and funny, and I especially loved the chapter on Bhutan.

Brew your coffee, get some cookies

Thoroughly enjoyed it. I haven't listened to many books - but the author does a great job here. His narration was fun, fluid, and when he makes attempts to replicate accents, it's funny. He does Arab accents, new york accents, Thai, British, and it's not always good, but always funny.

The book starts strong and starts to lose it's intensity toward the end. The first countries seem to take hours to investigate, but he seems to rush through the last few places which include; Florida, North Carolina, England and India.

Basically, Weiner, uses an academically based "Happy Scale" to find the happiest places on earth. The scale is measured on a number of attributes. These attributes are given good exploration at the beginning. If anything, it is the basis for the entire book. Each visit, incidentally, seems to confirm the scale's validity.

It starts in the Netherlands at a hash bar and just gets more colorful from there.

In his search for happy people, he decides to visit an unhappy place; Maldova. supposedly Maldova is one of the worlds unhappiest places. Indeed, the country seems so miserable that I caught myself laughing out loud a number times. Even the Peace Corp volunteers agree (they're interviewed). The worst place was a highlight for me and the happiest places seemed far less colorful (like Switzerland). Ugliness and misery make for character I guess.

In the end, I felt as confused as the author. It was refreshing that he spared us a sanctimonious lecture on happiness and instead seemed to honestly theorize that happiness is more about basics, general rules of thumb, then anything else.

Then it ended and, man, I was sad for a few minutes..

Great way to think about the pursuit of happiness

Enjoyable book.
I really find interesting the meaning of happiness in a geographic way!
I will consciously look at my life from now on.

happiness / ? is it really a place / who knew

? does contentment just seem to be beyond your grasp
? do other people look like they're happier than you are
? are there places on earth that are happier than other places

eric weiner (EW) spent many years trotting the globe with NPR
all that travel, lead him to see that "happy" isn't the same everywhere
it made him wonder, are there places that are conducive to happiness ?

the scope of his global "happiness" tour is truly impressive
EW seems to have a genuine insight and affection for each new stop
it helped me see how provincial our american standards are

at several points in the book, EW confesses to "being a grump"
most readers will have figured that out before his confession
the book may be, for weiner, a literary distraction from himself

the bliss he lacks may be hidden in the last place he looks, within himself