Bulson, Eric, James Joyce: An Introduction, Cambridge University Press, 2006.

This introduction presents the essential information that will make reading Joyce’s works easier for the beginner.

Emig, Rainer, ed., “Ulysses”: James Joyce, Palgrave Macmillan, 2005.

This collection of recent essays gives an overview of scholarship on Joyce’s novel and the divergent readings the novel has generated. Among the theoretical approaches included are gender and deconstruction.

Homer, Odyssey, translated by Robert Fagles, Penguin Group, 2006.

Homer’s classical epic of the mythic journey home by Odysseus is translated by Fagles into modern idiom, making this the edition to choose for a first read.

Kertész, Imre, Kaddish for a Child Not Born, translated by Christopher C. Wilson and Katharina M. Wilson, Northwestern University Press, 1997.

This whole novel is a single, unbroken interior monologue in which the protagonist, a Holocaust survivor, reflects...