If you are looking for a beast of a summer read, Ulysses by James Joyce is a great place to start today. The epic modern novel plays out the life of Leopold Bloom on one day in Dublin. Now this is not for everyone and has been tagged with issues of censorship and complexity ever since its original serialized publication in the US. Even, I must admit I’ve read it in segments -segmentation of the storytelling makes it easier to approach- over the years but never in one reading. It is an amazing piece of 20th Century literature and you should give it a look.

Some of my favorite quotes from the novel:

• The supreme question about a work of art is out of how deep a life does it spring.
• Be just before you are generous.
• History, Stephen said, is a nightmare from which I am trying to awake.
• We were always loyal to lost causes, the professor said. Success for us is the dark of the intellect and of the imagination.
• To learn one must be humble. But life is the great teacher.
• A man of genius makes no mistakes. His errors are volitional and are the portals of discovery.
• I resent violence or intolerance in any shape or form… It’s a patent absurdity on the face of it to hate people because they live around the corner or speak another vernacular, so to speak.

Look below for some suggestions about today and digital elements.

Guttenberg: Online Copy

AVClub: 29hr Broadcast of Ulysses