Schadenfreude, a Love Story
Me, the Germans, and 20 Years of Attempted Transformations, Unfortunate Miscommunications, and Humiliating Situations That Only They Have Words For
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Narrated by:
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Christa Lewis
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By:
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Rebecca Schuman
About this listen
Schadenfreude is the story of a teenage Jewish intellectual who falls in love - in love with a boy (who breaks her heart), a language (that's nearly impossible to master), a culture (that's nihilistic but punctual), and a landscape (that's breathtaking when there's not a wall in the way).
Rebecca is an everyday, misunderstood '90s teenager with a passion for Pearl Jam and Ethan Hawke circa Reality Bites until two men walk into her high school civics class: Dylan Gellner, with deep-brown eyes and an even deeper soul, and Franz Kafka, hitching a ride in Dylan's backpack. These two men are the ax to the frozen sea that is Rebecca's spirit, and what flows forth is a passion for all things German. First love might be fleeting, but Kafka is forever, and in pursuit of this elusive passion Rebecca will spend two decades stuttering and stumbling through German sentences, trying to win over a people who can't be bothered.
Schadenfreude, a Love Story is an exhilarating, hilarious, and yes, maybe even heartfelt memoir proving that sometimes the truest loves play hard to get.
©2017 Rebecca Schuman (P)2017 TantorListeners also enjoyed...
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Story
Part memoir and part how-not-to guide, The Wrong End of the Table is everything you wanted to know about Arabs but were afraid to ask, with chapters such as “Tattoos and Other National Security Risks,” “You Can’t Blame Everything on Your Period; Sometimes You’re Going to Be a Crazy Bitch: and Other Advice from Mom,” and even an open letter to Trump. This is the story of every American outsider on a path to find themselves in a country of beautiful diversity.
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Not what I was looking for
- By Amazon Customer on 09-01-22
By: Ayser Salman, and others
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I Don’t Care about Your Band
- What I Learned from Indie Rockers, Trust Funders, Pornographers, Felons, Faux-Sensitive Hipsters, and Other Guys I’ve Dated
- By: Julie Klausner
- Narrated by: Julie Klausner
- Length: 6 hrs and 23 mins
- Unabridged
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In the tradition of Cynthia Heimel and Chelsea Handler, and with the boisterous iconoclasm of Amy Sedaris, Julie Klausner's candid and funny debut I Don't Care about Your Band sheds light on the humiliations we endure to find love - and the lessons that can be culled from the wreckage. I Don't Care about Your Band posits that lately the worst guys to date are the ones who seem sensitive. It's the jerks in nice guy clothing, not the players in Ed Hardy, who break the hearts of modern girls.
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Shopping for Men at the Wrong Mall
- By Pamela Harvey on 01-02-13
By: Julie Klausner
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My Life with Bob
- Flawed Heroine Keeps Book of Books, Plot Ensues
- By: Pamela Paul
- Narrated by: Eileen Stevens, Pamela Paul
- Length: 6 hrs and 55 mins
- Unabridged
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Pamela Paul has kept a single book by her side for 28 years - carried throughout high school and college, hauled from Paris to London to Thailand, from job to job, safely packed away and then carefully removed from apartment to house to its current perch on a shelf over her desk - reliable if frayed, anonymous-looking yet deeply personal. This book has a name: Bob. Bob is Paul's Book of Books, a journal that records every book she's ever read.
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An uncanny mirror and a celebration of book love
- By Cherilyn Parsons on 07-28-19
By: Pamela Paul
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Bright Lights, Big City
- By: Jay McInerney
- Narrated by: Daniel Passer
- Length: 5 hrs and 11 mins
- Unabridged
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The tragicomedy of a young man in New York City, a writer, never named, who works as a fact-checker for a prestigious magazine. He struggles with the reality of his mother's death, alienation, and the seductive pull of drugs and a vibrant nightlife.
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Curiously, mundanely real
- By Amber on 01-07-12
By: Jay McInerney
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Undocumented
- A Dominican Boy’s Odyssey from a Homeless Shelter to the Ivy League
- By: Dan-el Padilla Peralta
- Narrated by: Dan-el Padilla Peralta
- Length: 8 hrs and 2 mins
- Unabridged
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Dan-el Padilla Peralta has lived the American dream. As a boy he came here legally with his family. Together they left Santo Domingo behind, but life in New York City was harder than they imagined. Their visas lapsed, and Dan-el's father returned home. But Dan-el's courageous mother was determined to make a better life for her bright sons. Undocumented is a classic story of the triumph of the human spirit. It also is the perfect cri de coeur for the debate on comprehensive immigration reform.
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A must read, but
- By Louise de Marillac on 10-10-15
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I Regret Nothing
- A Memoir
- By: Jen Lancaster
- Narrated by: Jen Lancaster
- Length: 9 hrs and 50 mins
- Unabridged
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New York Times best-selling author Jen Lancaster has lived a life based on re-invention and self-improvement. From Bitter Is the New Black to The Tao of Martha, she’s managed to document her (and her generation’s) attempts to shape up, grow up, and have it all - sometimes with disastrous results...Mistakes are one thing; regrets are another. After a girls’ weekend in Savannah makes her realize that she is - yikes! - middle-aged (binge watching is so the new binge drinking), Jen decides to make a bucket list and seize the day.
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The Smug Is Strong With This One
- By T. Filowitz on 05-24-15
By: Jen Lancaster
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God-Shaped Hole
- A Novel
- By: Tiffanie DeBartolo
- Narrated by: Rachael Warren
- Length: 10 hrs and 44 mins
- Unabridged
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When Beatrice Trixie Jordan replies to a personal ad, she meets Jacob Grace, a charming, effervescent 30-something free-spirit writer passionately seeking life. He possesses his own turns of phrase and ways of thinking and feeling that dissonantly harmonize with Trixie's off-center vision. As they rollercoaster through the joys and furies of their wrenching romance, they try to come to terms with the hurt brought about by both of their distant fathers who, in different ways, forsook them.
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To see a fortune teller or not to see one...
- By Renee on 08-08-18
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What Doesn't Kill You Makes You Blacker
- A Memoir in Essays
- By: Damon Young
- Narrated by: Damon Young
- Length: 8 hrs and 11 mins
- Unabridged
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For Damon Young, existing while Black is an extreme sport. The act of possessing Black skin while searching for space to breathe in America is enough to induce a ceaseless state of angst where questions such as “How should I react here, as a professional black person?” and “Will this white person’s potato salad kill me?” are forever relevant. What Doesn’t Kill You Makes You Blacker chronicles Young’s efforts to survive while battling and making sense of the various neuroses his country has given him.
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Reviewed by a B![c# @$$ White Boy
- By netusera on 04-13-19
By: Damon Young
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Road Dog
- Life and Reflections from the Road as a Stand-up Comic
- By: Dov Davidoff
- Narrated by: Dov Davidoff
- Length: 5 hrs and 31 mins
- Unabridged
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Road Dog is comedian, actor, and writer, Dov Davidoff's unflinching memoir told through reflections of twelve months on the road. Davidoff travels across the country from college campuses to local theaters doing stand-up comedy and telling it like it is. He's been known to wax poetic about everything from encounters with large fake breasts, to people who have too many kids, to magnum condoms the size of CD cases. He is hilarious and relatable and will have you laughing at yourself in no time.
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dark, real, & exceptional
- By Luis F Rodriguez on 11-22-17
By: Dov Davidoff
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Dear Girls Above Me
- Inspired by a True Story
- By: Charles McDowell
- Narrated by: Kirby Heyborne
- Length: 8 hrs and 1 min
- Unabridged
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When Charlie McDowell began sharing his open letters to his noisy upstairs neighbors - two impossibly ditzy female roommates in their mid-twenties - on Twitter, his feed quickly went viral. His followers multiplied and he got the attention of everyone from celebrities to production studios to major media outlets such as Time and Glamour.
Now Dear Girls breaks out of the 140-character limit as Charlie imagines what would happen if he put the wisdom of the girls to the test.
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An Enjoyable Listen
- By Elle W on 11-05-13
By: Charles McDowell
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This Is the Story of a Happy Marriage
- By: Ann Patchett
- Narrated by: Ann Patchett
- Length: 11 hrs and 36 mins
- Unabridged
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Blending literature and memoir, Ann Patchett, author of State of Wonder and Bel Canto examines her deepest commitments: to writing, family, friends, dogs, books, and her husband in This Is the Story of a Happy Marriage. Together, these essays, previously published in The Atlantic, Harper, Vogue, and The Washington Post, form a resonant portrait of a life lived with loyalty and with love.
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Entertaining, engrossing, and elucidative essays
- By Bonny on 01-07-14
By: Ann Patchett
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An Abundance of Katherines
- By: John Green
- Narrated by: Jeff Woodman
- Length: 6 hrs and 47 mins
- Unabridged
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When it comes to relationships, Colin Singleton’s type is girls named Katherine. And when it comes to girls named Katherine, Colin is always getting dumped. Nineteen times, to be exact. On a road trip miles from home, this anagram-happy, washed-up child prodigy has $10,000 in his pocket, a bloodthirsty feral hog on his trail, and an overweight, Judge Judy-loving best friend riding shotgun - but no Katherines.
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struggled to finish listening
- By Daniel on 03-11-20
By: John Green
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Everything Is Awful
- And Other Observations
- By: Matt Bellassai
- Narrated by: Matt Bellassai
- Length: 6 hrs and 16 mins
- Unabridged
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From the break-out star of BuzzFeed and the People's Choice Award-winning comedian comes a collection of hilariously anguished essays chronicling awful moments from his life so far, the humiliations of being an adult, and other little indignities. Matt Bellassai has no idea what he's doing. Well, to be fair, he did become semi-Internet famous by getting drunk at work, making him a socially-acceptable - nay - professional alcoholic. He's got some things figured out. But the rest is all just a terrible, disgusting mess.
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Best Audio Book I’ve heard ever.
- By M on 11-23-17
By: Matt Bellassai
What listeners say about Schadenfreude, a Love Story
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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- doug
- 02-20-21
this lady can write!
i love david foster wallace for his novels and his essays (eg, “a supposedly fun thing...”)
this author reminds me of dfw but without the run-on sentences and endnotes. A few common elements: both like to show off, which is so tedious unless the show offer is indeed very clever, as indeed dfw and ms. schuman clearly are. Oh, and i now can correctly pronounce “schadenfreude” and i can’t wait to correct someone con public
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- Autobahnpolizei
- 07-09-21
For German students
Youhave to be a student of German language, Germanistik, to fully appreciate this story. Having had some of the same experiences with German culture and language myself much of it truly resonated with me.
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- Amazon Customer
- 07-13-17
A humorous, delectable read
This book brings back the memories of a misspent youth in the 90s and oughts: the angst, the poor choices, and the luck of getting it right. I found myself finding ways to continue the book. Doesn't the dog need another walk? Yes, definitely. Even if you are not into the German language, Schuman will keep you laughing and cringing in embarrassment along the way. Besides, I feel like I have totally expanded my German vocabulary. The reading was also excellent!
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- Stephanie F.
- 05-26-19
Delightful and Insightful
Could not put this book down! It is an unexpected mix of language, culture, coming of age and the pains of Academia. loved it so much!
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1 person found this helpful