Published in 2014, the book the lists events that took place in the literary world on each day of the year. Some of these are major, such as the publication of George Orwell's 1984 on June 8, 1949; others quite insignificant, such as Tennessee Williams mentioning in his diary on April 29, 1940, that he "saw a silly picture called 1,000,000 Years B.C."
Nissley includes fictional events in his calendar as well. Scarlett O'Hara marries Charles Hamilton on April 30, for example.
In addition, Nissley gives us a couple of writers who were born and a couple of writers who died each day of the year. We discover, for example, that J.R.R. Tolkien was born on Jan. 3, 1892, or 130 years ago today, and that cartoonist Will Eisner died on this same date in 2009.
The research required for such a book must have been imposing. How does one discover that Arthur Rimbaud's right leg was amputated on May 27th or that Orwell made two pounds of blackberry jelly on Oct. 10? By reading lots of books and taking lots of notes, I suppose.
Nissley's years of research gives his readers three minutes of pleasure a day. Just the idea of Tennessee Williams watching One Million B.C. (the actual title of the 1940 movie he saw) or George Orwell making blackberry jelly gave me pleasure.
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