Geography of Bliss by Eric Weiner: Secrets of the Happiest Places on Earth (Book Review Sample)

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The Geography of Bliss by Eric Weiner
The book by Eric Weiner, " The Geography of Bliss: The Secrets of the Happiest Places on Earth”, is a great book when it comes to things to do with geography. However, this just one aspect of the book since it has a rich outlay of literary features that I am sure anyone would deem necessary for any literary work, whether devoted to geography or not. The book gives a geographical outlay of major features in different countries that people would enjoy seeing. He gives an account all the way from Iceland, Netherlands, Moldova, Bhutan, Qatar, Great Britain, India, Switzerland, Thailand, and the United States of America. Here, he sets the journey to discover what could be the blockers and enhancers of happiness and thus the title of the book, "The Geography of Bliss”. Despite having refuted the fact that happiness is something within us, and something that can be found. He brings out the line between the two to depict classically tow situations almost inseparable due to the almost invisible thin line between the external find of happiness and the ‘deep sited happiness’ that people claim to exist within the self.
Book Summary
Eric Weiner was a foreign NPR correspondent. As such, he was able to experience the most gruesome of all kinds of unhappiness in existence amongst the people of various countries.He could report on bombings bu suicide bombers in Iraq, students committing suicide in Japan, and so much mess all over. Well, a bit unsettled and tired by the happenings, he sought to develop a happiness map. He went about seeking places with people who were purportedly happier as he tried to seek the reason as to why they were happy while other people in other countries were all grumpy. From Switzerland, he realized that the Swiss are hard to come out so Euphoric with joy, and neither would they be so angered. He saw moderation in the way they would strike a balance and keep a happiness balance. He also realized that things in Switzerland had people with a spirit of efficiency and total perfection. Things would go in order, all over he traveled in Switzerland. They voted up to 7 times a year, they loved chocolate and have so many rules such as not flushing the toilet after t10.00 pm and laughing loud but still manage to be happy. He describes the mountainous Bhutan and the happy people despite the bad GDP while he sees the Americans as a happy lot that lose happiness in wonder of what makes them happy. The Qataris despite being a desert have all money. The students get paid while they study, people get free medical schemes, nobody pays fees, bu with all these money, they remain isolated and hidden behind their tribes.
Other travels see him at Moldova, a poor and very unhappy nation. He sees it unhappy yet a bit wealthier than some African countries. The US is wealthy but still not ranked the happiest. After all, being the only superpower, we would expect that it would be leading to happiness. India treats happiness and sorrow as fate as they term themselves children of destiny, and Britain brushes happiness as an unnecessary import from the United States.
Review
While Weiner goes out seeking to find the sources and the reasons for happiness, he encounters things that merely throw some of his beliefs and those of others about happiness off balance as he remains unable to explain what he sought out in the first place. One thing that he manages to use to keep the reader engaged is some factoids that he uses such as the 1.6 on a scale of 10 measure of happiness for the Dominicans in 1962. He also described the countries with highest suicide rates and their levels of happiness bringing about an oxymoronic depiction of happiness in its almost direct proportional relationship to suicide. In a way, these countries tend to have been so far that people may have gotten used to happiness that the smallest setback causes suicide, while, the on another hand, the unhappy nations look to have gotten used to their grumpy state such that they only would commit suicide at a low rate.
While people would expect Weiner to start popping out philosophical treatises as he explains happiness and how philosophers thunk about happiness. We are engulfed in a situation unlike others as we follow through his journeys as he explains the landscapes of Bhutan, the cut out roads in the mountains, the narrow roads, and the shacks built along the roads that just show how the people are poor. Still the unfailing love of the Nationals to their King, and his rules such as ones making the cutting of trees illegal, and so forth. In a way, readers can just understand the views of the author but the lack of many other exposes taking the same way of thinking. His is a geographical outplay, a method no used by anyone before to explain happiness.
As he goes about his business, he brings about various natures of people and how some...