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 enlarge | Author: Eric Weiner
Publisher: Twelve
Category: Book
List Price: $25.99
Buy New: $14.38
You Save: $11.61 (45%)
New (35) Used (20) Collectible (1) from $10.00
Rating:  87 reviews
Sales Rank: 3232
Media: Hardcover
Edition: 1
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 329
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
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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| Customer Reviews:
 A search clouded by one's own perspective May 16, 2008
Weiner travels to a variety of places with the hope of finding happiness. In trying to understand happiness, he relates much to his own experience. So he spends quite a bit of time comparing American culture/expectations with the culture/experience of those he visits. As well, as he tends to be someone who is not generally happy - or knows how to be happy, this tendency does affect his search (mostly by his being a bit lost about why others claim happiness).
The book tends to be fairly informative, especially as a means of understanding American culture. Yet, it wasn't the most exciting. It was more of a report on how some people found happiness than a book that provided insight into how to be happy. The chapter on Iceland (which I admit is as far as I got before I needed to return it) was the chapter I liked best. Happiness seemed a bit less illusive in that chapter. Weiner describes the Iceland understanding of happiness as being failure - or at least having the freedom to fail. Perhaps my resonation with this chapter has more to do, however, with my own personal bias that happiness has to do with being able to be fully oneself. And it is in the freedom to fail that people have the freedom to discover who they are - and be fully themselves...
 I'd love to travel this happy trail! May 15, 2008
I told you about this book last week, when I spent many happy days curled up in the comfy chair at Starbucks reading about all the places on earth that would make me happy or miserable. This book, by Eric Weiner (yes, pronounced whiner), takes a whirlwind tour of some of the happiest places on earth. And some of the most miserable places on earth. I wondered if the book would wrap the pursuit of happiness up in a neat little bow, but it doesn't. Instead, it offers a look at how the geography of where you live impacts your life.
Place. That is what The Geography of Bliss is about. How place--in every aspect of the word--shapes us, defines us. Change your place, I believe, and you can change your life.
This quote, by the author on his website, truly sums up the book. So what did I learn in exchange for those afternoons spent with The Geography of Bliss?
1. People have an innate "fit" with certain places on the globe. Unfortunately these are not always the places they are born or are living. Also, Moldova apparently fits no one.
2. Iceland sounds amazing: cozy, book-loving people living on an ice cube.
3. The closer you look at happiness to evaluate whether you have it, the less likely you are to be happy.
4. Most happiness appears to spring from trust and the ability to give yourself to something larger than yourself, something worth pursuing.
5. The author has an amazing ability, born most likely of his journalism career, to connect with local people and develop the sense of community in a short time. I envy him this ability and tried to analyze how he did it. Still working on that!
After meeting a bartender appropriately named Happy, the author offers this interesting summation of his stance.
But Happy [the bartender] is wise, for only a fool or a philosopher would make sweeping generalizations about the nature of happiness. I am no philosopher, so here goes: Money matters, but less than we think and not in the way that we think. Family is important. So are friends. Envy is toxic. So is excessive thinking. Beaches are optional. Trust is not. Neither is gratitude.
Good lessons to learn, and a good payoff for a few days traveling the globe vicariously with the author. I'd love to hop on a plane and follow the happy trail myself! I leave you with a quote that perhaps I should paint and hang on my wall!
The Icelandic saying goes, `Better to be barefoot than without a book!'
Living in the paradise of South Florida, perhaps I may change that to "Better to be barefoot WITH a book."
AVL sux May 4, 2008
Great book. Lauds geographer as the best job imaginable... Although, Asheville sucks, don't move here! Moldova has fresher fruits.
A real contribution to the theory of happiness April 28, 2008
I agree with the other reviews that this is a funny, well-written travel and self-discovery book. However, I bought it because I'm interested in the philosophy and science of happiness: books like The Science behind Your Smile, Satisfaction and Happiness: A History. Weiner has made a serious contribution to this subject by field-testing the theories in a wide range of environments. This is top-notch journalism, despite author's prominence and irreverent style. In the end, I was reminded more of Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas than anything I've read more recently.
Some theoretical work on happiness seems to be pure wordplay, you're not sure if the author has really said anything. Other work seems more interested in appearing scientific than exploring the subject. Weiner has read both sides (as well as the solid work in between), then gone looking to see if the insights meant anything in the world. The result is deceptively deep and thoughtful, it will change the way you think about both happiness and the world.
nice writing April 27, 2008
well worth your time - thought provoking - i'd like to meet the moldovian women !!
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