Thursday, June 18, 2026

003 Ulysses by James Joyce 1922

 



003
Ulysses
by James Joyce
1922


The modernist behemoth that mapped one day in Dublin – 16 June 1904 – and changed literature for ever. Originally conceived as a short story for his collection Dubliners, written over a seven-year period and banned in the US and the UK for obscenity before it was even published as a complete book, Joyce’s sprawling, stream-of-consciousness take on Homer’s Odyssey is one of the most challenging and rewarding novels written in English.


First sentence

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


Total votes 36

  • Maggie O’Farrell
    ,
  • Merve Emre
    ,
  • Jon Day
    ,
  • Alberto Manguel
    ,
  • Eimear McBride
    ,
  • Salman Rushdie
    ,
  • Chris Power
    ,
  • Yan Lianke
    ,
  • Blake Morrison
    ,
  • Melissa Harrison
    ,
  • Anne Enright
    ,
  • John Mullan
    ,
  • William Boyd
    ,
  • Siri Hustvedt
    ,
  • Claire Armitstead
    ,
  • Jacqueline Rose
    ,
  • Colum McCann
    ,
  • Jeet Thayil
    ,
  • Kevin Power
    ,
  • Elif Shafak
    ,
  • Sinéad Gleeson
    ,
  • Valeria Luiselli
    ,
  • Guy Gunaratne
    ,
  • Colm Tóibín
    ,
  • Charlotte Higgins
    ,
  • Justine Jordan
    ,
  • Kieran Goddard
    ,
  • Alex Clark
    ,
  • Houman Barekat
    ,
  • Stephen King
    ,
  • Ian McEwan
    ,
  • Stuart Kelly
    ,
  • Alexandra Harris
    ,
  • Ben Okri
    ,
  • James Meek
    ,
  • John Lanchester





002 Beloved by Toni Morrison 1987




002
Beloved
by Toni Morrison
1987


Winner of the Pulitzer prize for fiction, Morrison’s devastating account of formerly enslaved people after the American civil war was loosely based on the life of Margaret Garner, who killed her own daughter to spare her from being forced back into slavery. The novelist described Beloved as a story about “the pitched battle between remembering and forgetting”. This uncanny, literally haunted portrait of both physical and psychological violence remains one of the most banned and challenged books in American libraries, and one of the most cherished. In 1993, Morrison became the first Black woman to be awarded the Nobel prize in literature.

First sentence

“124 was spiteful. Full of a baby’s venom.”


Total votes 43


  • Merve Emre,
  • Kit de Waal
    ,
  • Imogen Russell Williams
    ,
  • Salman Rushdie
    ,
  • Yael van der Wouden
    ,
  • Esi Edugyan
    ,
  • Fiona Sturges
    ,
  • Jude Cook
    ,
  • Nadifa Mohamed
    ,
  • Anne Enright
    ,
  • Jan Carson
    ,
  • Roxane Gay
    ,
  • Bernardine Evaristo
    ,
  • Katharine Viner
    ,
  • Julie Myerson
    ,
  • Siri Hustvedt
    ,
  • Adam Roberts
    ,
  • Candice Carty Williams
    ,
  • Yagnishsing Dawoor
    ,
  • Lorrie Moore
    ,
  • Jacqueline Rose
    ,
  • Douglas Stuart
    ,
  • Katherine Rundell
    ,
  • Natasha Walter
    ,
  • Rebecca Liu
    ,
  • Claire Messud
    ,
  • Uzma Aslam Khan
    ,
  • Ali Smith
    ,
  • Sophie Mackintosh
    ,
  • Justine Jordan
    ,
  • Susanna Rustin
    ,
  • Sara Collins
    ,
  • Tahmima Anam
    ,
  • Lisa Allardice
    ,
  • Arifa Akbar
    ,
  • Aida Edemariam
    ,
  • Charlotte Northedge
    ,
  • Ella Creamer
    ,
  • Liese Spencer
    ,
  • Damian Barr
    ,
  • Lily King
    ,
  • Lauren Elkin
    ,
  • Daisy Johnson