Every artist dreads this slice of brutal irony: in a twisted bit of schadenfreude, within 24 hours of Mordecai Richler's death, his books sold out at my local Book City store and the three others in Toronto. Chapters had a big increase in demand with some stores being sold out as well. Not only that, Reuters is reporting that "sales for The Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz had jumped 1,100 percent since July, while Barney's Version was up 450 percent in the same time frame" at Amazon.com. (Despite my affiliate relationship with Chapters, its just too bizarre to post this item and solicit sales.)