An almanac can be a list of births, deaths, and anniversaries … or it can be a conversation.

The more entries you read, and the more you join the dots across genre, era, and voice, the clearer certain themes become. Power. Visibility. Individuality. Moral choices.

We can find Ellison’s love for jazz in the deceptively improvised feel of Invisible Man (1952), but actually, it was polished to perfection. His protagonist does not choose invisibility; he moves through institutions that promise recognition but deliver erasure.

Ellison asks what kind of moral blindness makes people invisible. John Steinbeck (27.02) and Philip Reeve (28.02) ask similar questions in very different worlds.

Each month, the Almanac traces these intertextual threads more deliberately. Keep checking back in, and see how the project develops …

Over to you: tell me about a book which opened your eyes to people who are often ‘invisible’.