There's real pleasure in reading about the stupidity and misfortunes of other people, so long as you don't know too much about their lives. From a sentence to half a page is enough: any more than that and you might find some reason to identify with the people in the stories.

"A couple had to be treated for hypothermia in Gersheim, Germany, after the parked car in which they were having sex rolled down a boat ramp into the Rhine River."

The stories get a little repetitive if one reads them all at the same time: this is a book to dip into occasionally. Don't try to read a chapter at a time, but just open it at random.

"A Singapore court sentenced Tan Ah-bah, 49, to three months in jail for assaulting a 37-year-old man. The incident occurred at a known lover's lane when the two men, who both admitted to being Peeping Toms, fought over the best spot to watch a couple making out in their car."

The chapters are organized into different topics, including "Sperm in the News," "Undergarments," "The Big O," Mammaries are Made of This," and "Dumb Sex."

"Mohammed Abdel Rahman, 29, leaped to his death from a Cairo balcony on his wedding night when he learned that his mother-in-law had switched brides, tricking him into marrying the uglier of her two daughters. Rahman had had to leave the country on business and entrusted the wedding paperwork to his brother and the mother-in-law, who wrote the other daughter's name on the forms."

Of course, these stories aren't always hilarious: some just make one pause for a moment at people's folly. But for the most part, they at least bring a wry grimace to one's face.

"A Denver district court jury convicted Manuel Bustos Silva, 42, of murdering his common-law wife, Maria Rodriguez, despite his explanation that she hexed him by putting pubic hairs in his food, causing him to go crazy and strangler her."

There must be explanations of the weird and mystifying things people say and do, but Real Sex isn't the book to read to figure out what moves people. It is the book to read when one need to remind oneself that one's life could be a lot worse.

Categories: General