She yearned to take pleasure in someone else's misfortune? A hilarious quest to understand life's ultimate guilty pleasure - in a beautiful gift package. A hilarious quest to understand life's ultimate guilty pleasureSchadenfreude - enjoying the pain of others, a reaction known as. A new book, Schadenfreude: The Joy of Another's Misfortune, is an all-too-familiar. It means pleasure caused by the misfortune of others.