Readers around the world invited to join in reading James Joyce's 'Ulysses' this summer

With Bloomsday in sight, the Ulysses in 80 Book Club is inviting readers from all over the world to read  and/or listen to James Joyce’s Modernist classic novel Ulysses over 80 days, tackling 10-15 pages a day from June 1st to August 19th 2026.  

The project is led by Cliona O’Farrelly, a scientist at Trinity College Dublin who has read Ulysses 24 times and “still doesn’t understand it” and her friend Mark Sanford Gross, who is based in California and has never been to Ireland, but says he “gets” both Stephen Dedulus and Leopold Bloom (main characters in the book) “in his soul”. 

This is the fifth summer in a row for this book club to address itself to the James Joyce tome, and it is the first time events will take place in the US. 

Two series of in-person gatherings will accompany the 2026 reading of Ulysses in 80 Days—one in Dublin’s Docklands – at Trinity College Dublin’s dedicated community engagement space at Unit18 - and one in California. 

“I’m not going to pretend Ulysses is an easy read but it is such a huge fantastic book, packed with dozens of events and characters, thoughts, songs and jokes all lurching from the maudlin to the inspired to the puzzling all around Dublin city.” said Cliona O’Farrelly, Professor of Comparative Immunology at Trinity College Dublin. “There is something for everyone, even if they don't read the 10-15 pages every day”. 

Book club participants at the first meeting of 2026 in Unit18 in Dublin's Docklands (Cliona O'Farrelly is on the far right). Image by Paul Sharp.

Trinity School of English Associate Professor Sam Slote, who has been involved with Ulysses in 80 since its 2022 launch, said: “’Getting’ Ulysses is perhaps not even the real point of the book since it’s meant to be read and enjoyed. Sometimes not understanding something, such as missing a reference or a nuance in a turn of phrase, is actually part of the point – and I’m saying this as someone who has spent many, many years annotating the book. A reading group like this emphasises the joys of reading for pleasure.” 

Mark Sanford Gross added: “Hopefully, readers from all walks of life, from all corners of the globe, with all sorts of reading interests – and none – will find something to please, intrigue, annoy, and stimulate them during the 80 days. At some point Ulysses stops being simply a difficult book to read and becomes a way of understanding how we move through life together.”  

The online book club is based at the dedicated website Ulyssesin80.com where the first and last few words as well as the page numbers for each day’s readings will be posted daily. 

The relevant page numbers of several printed editions will be provided, as well as the line numbers from the online Gutenberg Press edition so people without a copy of the book can still read it.   

Since the organisers believe listening to Ulysses is sometimes better than reading it, the relevant time stamps for the RTE podcasts of Ulysses will be posted daily.

Readers are invited to contribute their thoughts, comments and insights about the day’s section online. Alternatively they can engage in more specific discussions in one of the websites ‘snugs’ dedicated to some of the multiplicity of topics that thread through Ulysses including ‘Music’ ‘Dante’ ‘History’ ‘Religion’ ‘Family’ ‘Money’, ‘ ‘Poverty’ ‘Misogyny’.  

To sign up and receive updates and announcements, please email: readingulyssesin80@gmail.com