Life's Little Annoyances: True Tales of People Who Just Can't Take It Anymore

Somewhere between passive aggressive and passionate aggression lies the perfect humorous response to an irritating event. Writer Ian Urbina—who started this project by writing an article for the New York Times and attracting legions of the slightly annoyed—has compiled a lovely collection of non-injurious (but highly mean) solutions that soothe the cranky soul.

The introduction gets off to a brilliant start: Urbina coated a pint of his frequently "borrowed" ice cream with a thick layer of salt, driving his ice cream thief of a housemate to furiously outing herself as the culprit. Additional tales offer websites that reject unappealing date prospects for you, examples of anti-honking haiku distributed on telephone poles all over Brooklyn and a flat-out heartening recounting of the original parking meter fairies in Anchorage, AK.

Heartening fairies and websites providing confrontation avoidance techniques aside, this is no typical relax-and-be-nice book that help readers calm down and appreciate life. Instead, it offers the dual purpose of giving everyone a chance to appreciate the sheer creative genius lurking in your average curmudgeon while inspiring the world to further feats of nearly meaningless anger management Jill Lightner