Publisher, Hachette Audio (December 2011)

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When a health scare puts him in the hospital, Eric Weiner-an agnostic by default-finds himself tangling with an unexpected question, posed to him by a well-meaning nurse. "Have you found your God yet?" The thought of it nags him, and prods him-and ultimately launches him on a far-flung journey to do just that.

Weiner, a longtime "spiritual voyeur" and inveterate traveler, realizes that while he has been privy to a wide range of religious practices, he's never seriously considered these concepts in his own life. Face to face with his own mortality, and spurred on by the question of what spiritual principles to impart to his young daughter, he decides to correct this omission, undertaking a worldwide exploration of religions and hoping to come, if he can, to a personal understanding of the divine.

The journey that results is rich in insight, humor, and heart. Willing to do anything to better understand faith, and to find the god or gods that speak to him, he travels to Nepal, where he meditates with Tibetan lamas and a guy named Wayne. He sojourns to Turkey, where he whirls (not so well, as it turns out) with Sufi dervishes. He heads to China, where he attempts to unblock his chi; to Israel, where he studies Kabbalah, sans Madonna; and to Las Vegas, where he has a close encounter with Raelians (followers of the world's largest UFO-based religion).

At each stop along the way, Weiner tackles our most pressing spiritual questions: Where do we come from? What happens when we die? How should we live our lives? Where do all the missing socks go? With his trademark wit and warmth, he leaves no stone unturned. At a time when more Americans than ever are choosing a new faith, and when spiritual questions loom large in the modern age, MAN SEEKS GOD presents a perspective on religion that is sure to delight, inspire, and entertain.

About the Author: For as long as I can remember, I’ve been a restless soul. When I was five years old, I ran away from home, determined to find what wonders awaited me around the corner. I’ve been looking ever since.

I always wanted to be a foreign correspondent. So I could hardly believe my good fortune when, one day in 1993, NPR dispatched me to India as the network’s first full-time correspondent in that country. I spent two of the best years of his life based in New Delhi, covering everything from an outbreak of bubonic plague to India’s economic reforms, before moving on to other postings in Jerusalem and Tokyo. Over the years, I reported from more than 30 countries, everywhere from Algeria to the Indonesia.

Typically, foreign correspondents like myself travel to the world’s least happy countries (think Iraq, Afghanistan, etc.) and seek out the least happy people there (refugees, war orphans). On one level, this is important, rewarding work. It can also be a real bummer. So I decided to write a book in which I sought out the world’s unheralded happy places. Countries that, in their own way, are busy pursuing that most American of pursuits: happiness. The result is The Geography of Bliss, a New York Times Bestseller that has been translated into 18 languages.

In my latest book, Man Seeks God, I continue searching, but this time for a taste of the divine. To this end, I travel to Kathmandu and Istanbul—and even Vegas—where I experience first-hand the varieties of religious experience. The book goes on sale December 5.

I do a lot of other writing. My commentary and essays appear in the Los Angeles Times, Slate and The New Republic, among other publications. I write regularly for a wonderful new travel magazine called AFAR.

I also served as a correspondent for NPR in New York, Miami and Washington, D.C. and was part of a team of NPR reporters that won a Peabody award for a series of investigative reports about the U.S. tobacco industry. I attended the University of Maryland and was a Knight Journalism Fellow at Stanford University in 2003. I’m also a former reporter for The New York Times.

When not writing, or thinking about writing, I am an avid cyclist and tennis player and consumer of sushi (Tekka maki, in particular). I’ve settled, quasi-happily, in the Washington, DC area, where I live with my wife and daughter, as well as our two rambunctious cats.