Schadenfreude, baby!

The term 'Schadenfreude'-originally a German word translated as "pleasure taken in someone else's misfortune"-has become entrenched in popular culture. There have been references to it everywhere from 'The West Wing' to 'The Colbert Report'. Sarah Silverman has a running joke about it in her comedy skits. Ben Affleck even blamed it for the failure of 'Gigli', his ill-fated movie with JLo (even though everyone knows what the problem really was...). Delighting in other people's ill luck is an undeniable part of the modern psyche. It can be as simple as a slip on a banana peel or the soap opera unraveling of a celebrity scandal. This slightly naughty book compiles scores of Schadenfreude moments, many of which are sure to provide helpful cheer, such as heiress Paris Hilton facing a jail sentence for driving on a suspended license, wartime VP Dick Cheney in a weapons mishap, and Olympian showboat Lindsey Jacobellis losing the snowboarding gold medal. Filled with the missteps and downfalls of the famous and not so famous, "Schadenfreude, Baby!" taps into our universal longing to gawk and smirk at the people who stand-or fall-for all of us. This helps us feed the delusion that while the accidents and agonies of life are happening to someone else, we ourselves are spared... at least for the moment.