Review: The Geography of Bliss: One Grump's Search for the Happiest Places in the World
By: Eric Weiner
🌟🌟
DNF 53%
I typically read fiction. But I was having a flare up of my Wanderlust and to keep it partially sated (and to resist the urge to go backpacking in Peru, leaving my husband at home with a two year old), I read travel books. I was excited by this book. It’s an interesting topic that I’ve never gave much thought about, and certainly have never read about: Happiness.
Eric Weiner travels the world in a quest to find happiness. Where are the happiest places and where are the least happy places. And what makes them this way.
But Weiner is very superficial. He doesn’t go into much detail about a topic before flitting off to the next topic. There are no moments that make me stop and think or make me want to make a life change. Weiner also doesn’t go in depth about the people he speaks to. I would have thought he would have spent more time discussing Ruut Veenhoven, “the godfather of happiness research.” He’s a Professor of Happiness Studies and runs the World Database of Happiness. I figure he’s a pretty important guy is the happiness world.
But Weiner’s style of writing was appealing. His sarcastic tone filled with dry humor made me laugh. (Well, what passes for a laugh these days: an extra hard exhalation through my nose)
“We drive down the hill to Thimphu. Every trivia buff who visits the city loves to point out that it is the world’s only capital city without a single traffic light, so I will do so here. Thimphu is the world’s only capital city without a single traffic light.”
All in all, the book was OK. I laughed a couple times and a learned a few things, but it was pretty shallow and I couldn’t finish it.