Finding Happiness the Finnish Way!

  • Fascination with Finland: From Helsinki to Lapland
  • Scandinavian attitude towards life: contentment, happiness and serenity

'If anyone knows Finland, he does.' - DIE WELT

A search for the Finnish soul.
Bernd Gieseking travels through the land of the masters of happiness. He journeys from South to North, from Helsinki to Inari, via Rovaniemi, the Island of Hailuoto, and back again to Turku. He visits friends he has known for years and meets artists and a beer brewer, a female bishop, a vet, a Moomin expert, a former member of the Leningrad Cowboys band, a staff member of the Finnish parliament, the Finnish female runner-up in dressage, and he sits around in numerous saunas, speaks to a licorice manufacturer, and attends the Finnish watercross championships. Gieseking asks Finns why they are happy, and if they think Germans could be happy in Finland, and Finns happy in Germany. And he asks himself why he is always so happy whenever he's in Finland.

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  • Publisher: FISCHER Taschenbuch
  • Release: 26.05.2021
  • ISBN: 978-3-596-70580-1
  • 304 Pages
  • Author: Bernd Gieseking
Finding Happiness the Finnish Way!
Bernd Gieseking Finding Happiness the Finnish Way!
Rita Meyer
© Rita Meyer
Bernd Gieseking

Bernd Gieseking, born 1958 in Minden/Kutenhausen, enjoys travelling, particularly in cold regions: the Arctic, Greenland, Svalbard – and Finland, of course. Which makes it lucky that his younger brother falls in love with a Fin and moves to Lahti. The more than 50 year-old author is thus treated to a family road trip with his old parents, all the while experiencing plenty of both every-day and extraordinary adventures to fill an entire book.
When Gieseking isn’t travelling, he is most likely moderating for radio, art and caricature exhibits or writing: newspaper columns for the taz’ “Truth” section, children’s radio plays for the WDR, as well as literary-satirical one-man-shows such as his year-end-review Ab dafür! – performing which, he travels again.
Fischer Taschenbuch has published: Finne dich selbst! , Das kuriose Finnland-Buch – Was Reiseführer verschweigen , as well as Gefühlte 30 .