Description

‘A delightful book, full of jokes and confessions’ Guardian

A hilarious quest to understand life’s ultimate guilty pleasure

In Schadenfreude, historian of emotions Tiffany Watt Smith offers expert insight and advice. Ranging across thinkers from Nietzsche to Homer Simpson, investigating the latest scientific research, and collecting some outrageous confessions on the way – she reveals how everyone, babies, nuns, your most trusted friends, are enjoying your misfortunes. But rather than an emotional glitch, she argues, Schadenfreude can reveal profound truths about our relationships with others and our sense of who we are.

Frank, warm and laugh-out-loud funny, Schadenfreude makes the case for thinking afresh about this much-maligned emotion – and perhaps, even, embracing it.

Publisher Review

[This] treatise on one of the most shame-inducing but widespread of all emotions is funny and insightful * Sunday Times * [a] delightful book, full of jokes and confessions -- Stuart Jeffries * Guardian *