The Geography of Bliss

Starred review from October 22, 2007
Fortified with Eeyoreish fatalism—“I’m already unhappy. I have nothing to lose”—Weiner set out on a yearlong quest to find the world’s “unheralded happy places.” Having worked for years as an NPR foreign correspondent, he’d gone to many obscure spots, but usually to report bad news or terrible tragedies. Now he’d travel to countries like Iceland, Bhutan, Qatar, Holland, Switzerland, Thailand and India to try to figure out why residents tell “positive psychology” researchers that they’re actually quite happy. At his first stop, Rotterdam’s World Database of Happiness, Weiner is confronted with a few inconvenient truths. Contrary to expectations, neither greater social equality nor greater cultural diversity is associated with greater happiness. Iceland and Denmark are very homogeneous, but very happy; Qatar is extremely wealthy, but Weiner, at least, found it rather depressing. He wasn’t too fond of the Swiss, either, uncomfortable with their “quiet satisfaction, tinged with just a trace of smugness.” In the end, he realized happiness isn’t about economics or geography. Maybe it’s not even personal so much as “relational.” 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.

December 1, 2007
A self-proclaimed grump, Weiner has spent a decade as a foreign correspondent for National Public Radio, giving him ample opportunity to view the human condition around the world. Intrigued by the ingredients for bliss, he consulted with a Dutch professor of happiness studies, who set him off on a journey to visit places known to havehappiness indexes. Iceland ranks because of its high tolerance for failure and Qatar for its extreme wealth. Weiner explores tranquility in Bhutan, the closest thing to Shangri-La, which has a government policy on Gross National Happiness. In Moldova, the former Soviet Republic in the miserable throes of recovery, he defines happiness as being elsewhere. In Britain, he finds a people put off by the American enthusiasm for happiness, and at home, he finds an endless pursuit of joy that evades us even as we are alone in status as a superpower. Grouchy or not, Weinerdisplays anopenness to other cultures and a huge sense of humor inthis absorbing, funny, and thoughtful look at notions of bliss.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2007, American Library Association.)