The release date for the English version of 'The Geography of Bliss: One Grump's Search for the Happiest Places in the World' by
Eric Weiner is Jan 2008. If you enjoy this novel, it is available for buy as a paperback from Barnes & Noble or Indigo, as an ebook on the Amazon Kindle store, or as an audiobook on Audible.
Weiner worked as a foreign journalist for eight years, covering unrest in places including Indonesia, Afghanistan, and Iraq. He observes that unhappy individuals in very unstable moods provide pathos and make for compelling prose, but they don't generate positive karma. Thus, for a year, self-help book enthusiast and self-admitted grump Weiner searched the world for the "unheralded happy places." The outcome is this book, which is equal parts intellectual and belly-laugh inducing, exploring the meaning of the path to real contentment.
Unexpectedly, Iceland, Bhutan, and India seem to be the happiest locations on earth. Weiner also travels to Moldova, the nation said to have the worst unhappiness, and finds truth in the assertion.
Still, it's unclear what exactly makes people happy. Is it Singapore's many constraints or the freedom of the West? Which is more impressive: the glitzy malls in Qatar or the modest ashrams in India?
Weiner makes humorous but insightful observations on how people react to circumstance and destiny, from the young inebriation of Iceland to the desolation of Slough, a depressing but resilient town in Heathrow's flight path.
This humorous journey across four continents is both illuminating and uplifting, but maybe best of all, the "geography of bliss" for the reader is wherever they chance to be at any given time while reading it.