Sad music moves us like nothing else, and despite its gloomy nature it also has the curious power to make us happy. In This Will End in Tears: The Miserabilist Guide to Music, author Adam Brent Houghtaling explains why, while offering up a compendium of history''s masters of melancholy and the greatest sad songs of all time, featuring artists across genres and through time-from torch songs to country weepers to emo classics. Loaded with recommended playlists and insights into our favorite sob songs, This Will End in Tears is a fascinating immersion into the "miserabilist" genre, a musical marker with increasing resonance.

Adam Brent Houghtaling is an editor, writer, musician, and digital consultant living in Brooklyn, New York.