Ulysses

 Joyce’s brilliant, wildly experimental novel follows Leopold Bloom over one day in Dublin: June 16, 1904. A masterpiece of modernism, the book (and its inventive structure and linguistic flights) have been an inexhaustible source of pleasure and study for nearly a century.

Though “Ulysses” is now regarded as a masterpiece, the Book Review’s critic vacillated between admiration and annoyance in his review: “The average intelligent reader will glean little or nothing from it ... save bewilderment and a sense of disgust.”