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Radio ShangriLa What I Learned in Bhutan the Happiest Kingdom on Earth [Hardcover] Books

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Excellent Book

Radio ShangriLa What I Learned in Bhutan the Happiest Kingdom on Earth [Hardcover] Books

I'm a very well-read person who is very interested in topics such as travelling and experiences, and while I thought this book would be promising, the manner in which the information about Bhutan was delivered was just too awkward, as if read from an encyclopedia. I agree with other reviews that the style is more reminiscent of a blog than a memoir or novel. Although I don't know much about Bhutan, I'd like to think that I know enough cultural translation and travel fiction, and this just read as if for Ms Napoli the Bhutanese were borderline childlike only because they abide by a different set of cultural rules and norms. Not only was she unaware of her surroundings, but she also idealized (read Orientalized, provincialized) Bhutan and, what is very ironic is that she never questions what she is really doing there or what is it that make the Bhutanese "happy". Too self-centered to be about others.

Product details Hardcover Publisher Broadway Books; First Edition edition (2011) ASIN B004MT3X4A

Tags : Radio Shangri-La: What I Learned in Bhutan, the Happiest Kingdom on Earth [Hardcover] on Amazon.com. *FREE* shipping on qualifying offers. Excellent Book,Radio Shangri-La: What I Learned in Bhutan, the Happiest Kingdom on Earth [Hardcover],Broadway Books,B004MT3X4A
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Radio ShangriLa What I Learned in Bhutan the Happiest Kingdom on Earth [Hardcover] Books Reviews

I am planning a trip to Bhutan in Fall and this was a delightful book to read as an orientation to the country, culture, etc. I really enjoyed it.
Love this account of how Lisa Napoli "shook up" her life and thoroughly enriched it by embracing a new adventure in Nepal. Excellent!
I always enjoy reading about different adventures and cultures but this book went on too long. I struggled to finish the book and found myself wondering what the author actually did most of the time in Bhutan?
I've never been to Bhutan, but through Lisa's book, I feel like I got an insider's look into this tiny kingdom that I probably will never be able to visit. This is a wonderful, warm and human story of an American looking for more and looking to connect. She winds up running a radio station in Bhutan and finding a satisfaction and a cause she never would have discovered otherwise. Bravo. Great book.
Having just finished Zeppa's Beyond the Sky and the Earth A Journey into Bhutan, I picked up Radio Shangri-la as much as anything to test out my new . The two books could not be more different--I found it difficult to put Radio Shangri-La (and my ) down. Zeppa was a young college grad with little experience outside of her rather limited sphere in Canada when she went on a Peace Corps like stint to teach (with little or no qualifications). By contrast, Napoli was a seasoned journalist when she was asked to help a state sponsored radio startup targeting young people. While Zeppa recounts her experience in the more remote parts of the country, Napoli hardly ventures out beyond Thimpu. So if you are looking for a travellogue, this is not the book for you. Instead, what you get is a very personal study of the Bhutanese people, as they live on the cusp between isolation and integration into the 21st century and a global economy. While both books include some rather private emotional experiences (in each case there are love interests), in Radio Shangri-La they happily remain on the margins.

In contrast to the rather sketchy quality of most of the people described by Zeppa, Napoli provides a vivid descripion of the people she meets. The majority of the people Napoli describes are quite young (rather symbolic of the country as a whole), as is almost inevitable given that she what she was asked to do. She describes the fascination with all things Western (speak primarily American) and yet a deep rootedness in their own traditions (sometimes despite themselves). Then there are the 'grown ups', mostly Western educated, who are trying their best to provide the necessary leadership to the country's progress. More shadowy in the background are the king and even the king's former tutor, a Westerner who seems more entrenched in the past than anyone else.

The challenges these people face as they fast forward into modern society are underscored even more when one of the young people she befriends comes to visit the U.S. and (how could it be anything else) tries to stay on as an illegal.

While the focus of the book is the people populating the world Napoli has entered (a bit like Alice in Wonderland), the picture of Thimpu is similarly intense--a city undergoing an lightening speed expansion (not only for a small country like Bhutan). For someone who wants to understand the complexities of life in Bhutan rather than exposure to its exotic qualities, I would consider this book a 'Must Read'.
This is not a book about Bhutan...this is a book about the author. Wikipedia will give you more information about the country and its people. Napoli is incredibly patronizing in what reads like a series of Facebook posts. Wish I could get a refund for this time waster.
There's not enough real content to make a book. Maybe if this had been edited a bit more? It just kept going on and on with epilogues upon epilogues...I started wondering when it was going to end. Again, needs to have been better organized for a more satisfying ending rather than just whimpering to a conclusion. This is NOT the quality of Eat Pray Love, but it could have been closer..
I'm a very well-read person who is very interested in topics such as travelling and experiences, and while I thought this book would be promising, the manner in which the information about Bhutan was delivered was just too awkward, as if read from an encyclopedia. I agree with other reviews that the style is more reminiscent of a blog than a memoir or novel. Although I don't know much about Bhutan, I'd like to think that I know enough cultural translation and travel fiction, and this just read as if for Ms Napoli the Bhutanese were borderline childlike only because they abide by a different set of cultural rules and norms. Not only was she unaware of her surroundings, but she also idealized (read Orientalized, provincialized) Bhutan and, what is very ironic is that she never questions what she is really doing there or what is it that make the Bhutanese "happy". Too self-centered to be about others.