GRAND JUNCTION, Colo. (KKCO) - Every year Mesa County Library chooses one book and encourages the entire community to read it together. This year the book is all about happiness. 11 News met up with this year's author to find out more about his book "The Geography of Bliss."

"I've been a correspondent for NPR for about fifteen, twenty years and really what we do as journalists is we focus on negativity and the unhappy places in the world and frankly I was sick of it, says Eric Weiner, author of "The Geography of Bliss."

That's why Eric Weiner decided to write something positive for the first time in his journalism career. He embarked on a one-year journey to find the happiest places in the world. Which he says wasn't easy.

"In fact, it's actually difficult to get people to talk about how happy they are. They're much better talking about how miserable they are," says Weiner.

Weiner was interested in what makes people happy and he was surprised to find the happiest people in a place he refers to as cold, dark and isolated: Iceland.

"One of the things I discovered is that this notion that paradise is warm and sunny and eighty degrees is really just wrong," says Weiner.

Weiner says people make their own happiness, their geography doesn't.

"Really what makes us happy is not a sunny day, or a beach or a drink with a little umbrella in it. It's the connections we make with other people," says Weiner.

Folks at the Mesa County Library also believe community interaction brings people together. That's why six years ago the One Book, One Mesa County program was founded.

"The idea is that we bring an author to town. We all read the book before he comes, and we really believe a community that reads together grows together," says Angie Allen, co-chair of One Book, One Mesa County.

Allen says Weiner's book has the ability to reach out to people of all ages in Mesa County and around the world.

"This has been our highest attendance year ever. We've had the most people come to programs. We've had the most fabulous discussions," says Allen.

Allen says Weiner's book was chosen in light of economic woes and the fact that some people might not be so happy these days. She hopes it takes readers on a journey to happiness.

"People have made major lifestyle changes. So we thought this was the perfect year to look at what makes unhappy, how we can be happier together as a community, and how we can get happier," says Allen.

For Weiner, he's just happy a county with a population of more than 140,000 would chose to read his book.

Weiner is in the process of writing his second book which will be about his own personal journey to find a religion that suits him. He says the book will be out on shelves sometime next year.