J is for James Joyce

I have read James Joyce's masterwork Ulysses. And honestly, all I can remember of it is Molly Bloom's joyously sensual "soliloquy of yes." I saw it performed as part of a one-woman show called James Joyce's Women and it was amazing. Hs novel Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man and his short story collection Dubliners are much more accessible. I'm pretty sure I've read Finnegan's Wake also but it's been erased from my memory as completely as if it was never there. Pity. Because I'm pretty sure I'll never revisit it.

If you don't know the soliloquy, here it is.

Call yourself a reader? Publisher's Weekly picks the "10 Most Difficult Books"

Of course James Joyce's Finnegan's Wake is on the list. smack dab in the middle as it happens. I've read it, but all I really remember is Molly Bloom's soliloquy and the only reason I remember that is I saw Fionnula Flanagan's fabulous one-woman show, James Joyce's Women. Also  on the list--Virginia Woolf's To a Lighthouse, Edmund Spenser's The Faerie Queen, and Women and Men by Joseph McElroy, a book I've never heard of that PW dubs "a post-modern meganovel." You can see the whole list here.

Shakespeare and Company Bookstore

Shakespeare and Company bookstore is one of the most famous bookstores in the world. In its first incarnation it was opened on the Left Bank of Paris in 1919 and moved to a nearby location in 1922 where it flourished until 1941, when the city was under occupation by the Nazis. The bookstore that now bears the name was opened in the 50s and renamed in the 60s as a tribute to the original, which was a part of the expat life of Ernest Hemingway, James Joyce, Gertrude Stein, and Ezra Pound. Here's a link to the store's site, which is filled with great images from its archives. You can follow the store on Twitter (@Shakespeare_Co).