Tom Nissley

A Reader’s Book of Days

W.W. Norton & Company, 2014

 

Am only on January 8th, but I can already tell this book will cause nothing but trouble. 

 

My reading list will swell grotesquely, my blood pressure will go up at the thought of all the books left unread, and the bank account will suffer from overly zealous shopping sprees for books I must have immediately. 

 

Really, I should be warning all bibliophiles to please stay away from this book. We are too weak for such temptations. 

 

Not only does he write entertainingly about events in the lives of authors and fictional events from books for each day of the year, but he also adds recommended reading for each month, birth and death dates of authors and all kinds of other literary snippets. 

 

Now go out and get your own copy. Of course you need to have it. I am not one for temperance when it comes to books.

 

 

An equally engrossing book, set up in the same manner is The Assassin's Cloak. An Anthology of the World's Greatest Diarists edited by Irene and Alan Taylor (Canongate Books, 2000)