Shannon's blog

Apparently newspapers are looking to obits as lifesavers. Death notices have proven to be one of the last reliable revenue sources, probably because most people find it tasteless to slap the rellies’ demise on Craigslist. Although there’s an equally creepy trend to immortalizing people on Facebook death pages. (Deathbook?)

And then there are programs that allow the dead to email long past their demise. 

This week Vintage re-issued two of my favourite books by of one of my favourite authors, Laurie Colwin, whose comic novels and charming food writing have earned her a cult following long past her 1992 death.

Colwin is often compared to Jane Austen because, as male critics tend to say of them both: nothing ever happens in their novels. That’s nonsense of course. They’re both satirists with a gimlet eye for human eccentricities. There is much going on these tales of interpersonal relationships. - Read more

TabithaThere’s no day so bad it can’t be improved by the hilarious, barely concealed rage of Australian satirist David Thorne.

Over at his blog 27b/6 he recounts the tales of his encounters with petty authority figures, dimwitted neighbours, and general fuckwits. He’s an inveterate letter writer with a mad passion for torturing the irony-impaired. The escalating exchanges frequently leave me collapsed over my keyboard laughing.