One of the odder anniversaries ...

I must get on with reading the book I am reviewing for Nov. 27 -- John Banville's The Sea -- but want to note that today marks one of the more unusual literary anniversaries: It is the date in 1849 on which Fyodor Dostoyevsky was sentenced to be executed. A month later, as the sentence was about to carried out, he was saved by a last-minute reprieve. Thanks to Today in Literature.