The Best Book Hardly Anyone Reads

There’s a meme going around Facebook these days showing a sign in a bookstore that says “Shoplifters will be forced to read James Joyce’s Ulysses.” I get the joke; really, I do. (Even Louise Penny shared the meme on her FB feed.) But I think bookstores, of all places, should know better. Because, the thing is, I adore Ulysses and think it’s one of the … Continue reading The Best Book Hardly Anyone Reads

Leslie KarstNovember 17, 2025November 15, 202529 Comments

Leslie Karst

Writing From Afar

James Joyce famously declared of Ulysses, his masterpiece love-letter to Dublin, that if that city “one day suddenly disappeared from the Earth it could be reconstructed out of my book.” But what’s fascinating is that, although Ulysses was written between 1914 and 1921, the last time Joyce actually set foot in Dublin was two years before he started writing, in 1912, after which he never … Continue reading Writing From Afar

Leslie KarstNovember 13, 2023November 12, 202330 Comments