Word: weiners
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 2000-2009
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...Weiner says his own disposition is akin to that of his favorite Winnie the Pooh character, Eeyore the despondent donkey. That - along with the fact that he has worked as a journalist in more than 30 countries and for a decade was a correspondent for U.S. nonprofit radio-news syndicator NPR - means he takes a skeptical and fact-based approach. The first place he lands is the World Database of Happiness (WDH), a Dutch institute that scientifically researches perceptions of happiness in various societies around the world, and ranks countries in order of contentment. At WDH, Weiner learns some...
...begins to acknowledge what he and all of us were aware of from the start: there is no single road to happiness. Heavy drinking, for instance, seems a benign diversion in Iceland but has ground Moldova to a depressed halt. The Swiss consistently say they are happy, but Weiner finds the country well run and well behaved to the point that two dogs he observes in a park one afternoon are "not on leashes but don't attempt to run off. They are Swiss dogs...
...book's absence of a singular, cohesive revelation won't stop you from enjoying its vignettes of Indian traffic or the cozy London pub, however. Weiner's travel writing delivers nourishing moments of humor and lucidity. (Travel, he reminds us, comes from the French word travail, or work, a thing that was for centuries relegated to unlucky pilgrims, nomads and soldiers who were forced to wander.) Sardonic observation is his particular gift. In the capital of Moldova - among the least happy places in the world according to the WDH - he walks past a couple of cops who "like all Moldovan...
...times, Weiner's gruffness comes off as a strained attempt to stay in the kind of character his book's structure requires, but his skill as a narrator outweighs this mannerism. Geography may not always offer the elegant packaging of virtuoso travel writers like Paul Theroux or Jan Morris, yet I know who I'd rather have sitting next to me on public transportation in Bangkok, passing sunburned sexpats in the bars of Patpong while wondering what it all means...
...dozen cities and some 30 flats in the past 10 years, I'd spent more than a little time wondering about the connection between place and peace, and whether I'd be happier in the next place. I can't remember what my answer was that day with Weiner in Reykjavík, but, like a typical American, I recall vividly not wanting to come off as unhappy. If he asked me the same question today, I probably still wouldn't be able to say, but reading about Weiner's travels and travails has led me to at least...