Schadenfreude: The Little Book of Black Delights

By Tim Lihoreau

We might not like to admit to it, but everyone -even the gentlest of souls -derives a secret guilty satisfaction from the misfortune of others. Tim Lihoreau has made it his business to uncover the myriad ways in which schadenfreude rears its wicked head, including: Turparphilia: To delight in the less than aesthetically beautiful nature of a friend's offspring. Nimbuphilia: To delight in driving wildly through a kerb-side puddle which you know to be too close to a pedestrian. Famaphilia: To delight in witnessing a celebrity in an everyday pickle. Schadenfreude: The Little Book of Black Delights uncovers the shady details of our darkest pleasures. Naming, defining and explaining each one in turn with fascinating insights and erudite wit, it drives at the heart of what it is we find so irresistibly delightful when faced with the other people's discomfort. Whether you actively pursue them, only think of them or even try and deny them, your blackest delights are in here somewhere...

• Language: English
• Publisher: Elliott & Thompson
• Release date: Dec 21, 2011
• ISBN: 9781907642388

Tim Lihoreau

Tim Lihoreau was born in Leeds in 1965. His early life was blighted by fronsophobia and it is highly likely that he suffered the odd hebdomophobic attack, something which doctors now think might have been a side-effect of his increasing holusophobia. Despite his crippling hrydaphobia, (not to mention his excirculophobic tendencies) he made it through school bearing his aliacallophobia almost proudly, as if it were a trophy. The lack of any real other options led him to study music at Leeds University - where the first signs of his caerulophobia became apparent. His graduation was made all the more remarkable as it involved overcoming both chronic arcaphobia and occasional bouts of manepostophobia. For a time, he played the piano for his living, only overcoming his officinophobia in 1990, when he started at Jazz FM. In 1991, he conquered uxorphobia, before moving to work at Classic FM in 1993, where, it is thought, the first symptoms of primaforaphobia led him to gain the rank of Creative Director. He is the author of several books - he notably overcame cadophobia to write The Incomplete and Utter History of Classical Music with Stephen Fry - and is a contributor to both The Daily Telegraph and The Independent, something which helps his disabling contumaphobia. By way of therapy for his ceterinfanophobia, he now lives in Cambridge with his wife and three children.He is calvophobic. Tim Lihoreau would like to make it abundantly clear that he has suffered from virtually every phobia in this book, with the notable exception of idemophobia and magnafundaphobia.

Reviews for Schadenfreude

[arewenotben · Rating: 1 out of 5 stars]

Gave up midway through this, quickly got tedious. A couple of titters of recognition but meh, there's far better toilet reads out there.