Still one of the most radical novels of the 20th Century, James Joyce's Ulysses is considered to have ushered in the era of the modern novel. Loosely based on Homer's Odyssey, the book follows Leopold Bloom and a number of other characters through an ordinary day, twenty four hours, in Dublin, on June 16, 1904. The text is dense and difficult, but perfectly suited to an oral reading, filled with language tricks, puns and jokes, stream of consciousness, and bawdiness.