Ulysses – James Joyce

"Stately, plump Buck Mulligan came from the stairhead, bearing a bowl of lather on which a mirror and a razor lay crossed."

Set on a single day—June 16, 1904—in Dublin, this novel follows the wandering of Leopold Bloom, an advertising canvasser, and Stephen Dedalus, a young teacher. Through a dazzling array of styles, parodies, and the stream-of-consciousness technique, Joyce elevates the banal details of their day into a modern epic that mirrors the structure of Homer's Odyssey.

James Joyce's masterpiece is arguably the most important novel of the 20th century. It revolutionized the form of fiction, exploring the inner workings of the human mind and the materiality of language itself with unparalleled density and humor.