Thrive: Finding Happiness the Blue Zones Way by Dan Buettner is an “interesting” read. It follows his first book, The Blue Zones: Lessons for Living Longer.  A “blue zone” is a place (demographic or geographic) where people live measurably longer lives.

This book lacks the narrative drive and cohesiveness that I tend to look for in nonfiction regardless of topic. I haven’t read The Blue Zones so I may have been at a disadvantage; that is, not knowing what to expect. I found the book oddly formatted, seemingly designed to maximize page length. For example, the “leading experts” are listed in chapter one, then questions about happiness are asked of each expert. As you might expect, you get some repetition, and since these experts are not writers, you get some fairly banal answers. “The word ‘happiness’ means many things.” That’s not to say that some of their responses aren’t interesting, just that the answers should have been heavily edited and weaved into the narrative, which consists of four separate travelogues in search of happiness.

The travelogue chapters, about 170 pages, are entertaining and worth reading, carrying the reader to four unexpectedly happy places – despite the often repetitious “lessons” at the end of each chapter, and the page-hogging big-font random facts at the bottom of pages. Chapter six “Lessons in Thriving” echoes the previous lessons, but aren’t too bad used as a sort of checklist for choosing a place to live. A “Special Bonus Chapter” is tacked on, a 25-page excerpt from The Blue Zones.

♥♥♥ Worth reading, but could have easily been a slim volume about four special happy blue zone places.