Author of The Geography of Bliss, an all-new perspective on what makes people happy.

Highlights

Seasoned and award-winning foreign journalist—and self-acknowledged grump—Eric Weiner has written a book with an extraordinary take on happiness: what are the cultural factors that nurture happiness.

He’s traveled to the places that surveys show are the happiest on earth to see what makes these people happy. The Geography of Bliss: One Grump’s Search for the Happiest Places in the World is his memoir of those travels. A New York Times bestseller, the book has been translated into 14 languages and won numerous awards.

His answers are drawn from his own personal discoveries about himself, the insights of classical thinkers on happiness, and analysis of the world’s most contented cultures.

Plus lots of humor.

Eric is a former foreign correspondent for NPR, with postings in New Delhi, Jerusalem, and Tokyo. Over the years, Weiner has distinguished himself as a versatile correspondent, covering wars and other major world events and occasionally switching his focus to the lighter side of life overseas. Eric is currently a regular commentator for NPR.

He’s worked on several award-winning teams for NPR, worked as a business reporter for The New York Times, and is a licensed pilot.

His commentary has appeared in the Los Angeles Times, Slate and The New Republic, among other publications.

Full of engaging wit and surprising insights, Eric Weiner is a fine speaker.

The Geography of Bliss

After decades of going to the most unhappy places in the world to write stories about catastrophe and human misery, Eric Weiner now has doubled back to write a book about happiness—about where it is rather than what it is. The foreign correspondent has visited the happiest places on earth (and to some of the places on the bottom of the list, too) to learn from the happiest people and The Geography of Bliss is his memoir.

A beguiling mixture of travel, psychology, science and humor, The Geography of Bliss takes the reader from America to Iceland to India, asking why Asheville, North Carolina is so happy? Are people in Switzerland happier because it is the most democratic country in the world? Does Bhutan’s tracking of its Gross National Happiness help to make them happier?

Eric finds the answers in the cultures he visited. And in ancient philosophy. Even in what he calls "the self-help industrial complex." And, finally, of course, inside himself. This book, and the presentations based on the book, are full of wisdom and wit, and surprising insights into why and how place matters in our search for happiness.

Credentials

Author, The Geography of Bliss
National and international correspondent, NPR
Winner, Angel Award
Co-recipient, 1998 Overseas Press Club special citation for coverage of Israel’s 50th anniversary
Co-recipient, 1994 Peabody award
Former business reporter, The New York Times
John S. Knight Fellowship, Stanford University