J.D. Salinger, 1919-2010 -- with bonus Howard Zinn obituary*!

Boy, when you're dead, they really fix you up.  I hope to hell when I do die somebody has sense enough to just dump me in the river or something.  Anything except sticking me in a goddam cemetery.  People coming and putting a bunch of flowers on your stomach on Sunday, and all that crap.  Who wants flowers when you're dead?  Nobody.  

--J.D. Salinger, The Catcher in the Rye, Chapter 20

• LA Times
• The Guardian
• The New York Times
• The Washington Post
• The Telegraph
• And of course, the tweet heard 'round the literary world. 
• But don't let all of the Salinger coverage completely distract you from Howard Zinn.  Do be sure to at least read this obit -- I read most of it aloud to Josh and we giggled all the way through it.  (In a nice, friendly, happy way.)

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*I'm not being a jerk -- it just seems like authors have been dying right and left lately.  Sad.