Sometimes, when I am miserable, I read things that are even more awful than my life and this is soothing. Twelve years ago, my marriage was a pile of dogshit and I was really miserable and I read all sorts of stuff on Cambodia, including a biography of Pol Pot called Brother Number One, watched The Killing Fields, read Eichmann in Jerusalem, and more or less immersed myself in thinking about genocide. READ MORE >