With Ulysses and Us, Declan Kiberd wants to rescue James Joyce's Ulysses from academia and put it back where it rightfully belongs--with the common reader. Obviously, there's an almost-insurmountable problem with this: most people won't read Ulysses at all. Even if we grant that Joyce himself didn't take his book seriously--as he wrote to a friend in 1922, "[O]n the honor of a gentleman, there is not one single serious line in it"--its reputation as difficult literature is enough to frighten most common readers. It's going to take a lot more than Ulysses and Us to convince people to dust off their Joyce. If Kiberd wants to win, though, he might start by killing the subtitle of Ulysses and Us; The Art of Everyday Life in Joyce's Masterpiece doesn't sound like something that brings Ulysses to the proletariat.

Here's how I'd do it:

Hey, bloke. Want to read a dirty book? A book that was banned because it's so obscene and yucky? A book with dirty, filthy fucking and fart jokes? A book about bars and beer and broads? A book featuring whores and desperate housewives? A book about a guy who has weird sexual fetishes? A book that actually spells out the word cunt? Well, then I've got the book for you!

Now Ulysses is flying off shelves.