Joyce James Joyce 
Ulysses (Squashed Edition) 

The Squashed edition of Ulysses by James Joyce. Abridged from the original text to read in an hour or so. James Joyce’s attempt at writing Ireland’s ’National Epic’ has repeatedly been chosen, by literary experts, as simply the best book of all time. Which is strange, as ordinary people tend to denounce it as pretentious and unreadable twaddle. Why the difference? With its odd, fragmented, form, ’Ulysses’ makes very little sense unless the reader is already familiar with its many references to earlier books, including the general outline of the ancient tale on which it is vaguely based. Anyone who has read a few of the Squashed Editions shouldn’t have too much trouble. Squashed editions are precise abridgements – the original ideas, in their own words, the full beam of the book, the quotable quotes and all the famous lines, but neatly honed down to the length of a readable short story. "Like reading the bible without all the begats" – Prof. Jim Curtis