That Blooming book (Part 3)

Vona Groarke

In 1993, myself and my boyfriend went to Oslo. I was working in the National Museum there for the summer. We wanted to travel light, so we just took one book with us, the old Bodley Head edition of Ulysses that we picked up in some second-hand bookshop. Then when we got to Norway, we discovered how expensive everything was, we couldn't afford anything.

Ulysses turned out to be our main entertainment for the summer. We took turns reading it to each other, by the light of the midnight sun. Then we used to quiz each other on the bits we'd read. What horse won the Gold Cup? What did Bloom buy in Sweny's Chemist? What was the unidentified man by the grave wearing? We knocked a great read out of it, we read it inside out.

I'd read Ulysses once before, but in an academic context. That second time in Norway, it was pure fun. We got married in Norway at the end of that summer and we still use some of the phrases from the novel. They've turned into our domestic jokes. Like, saying "wine of the country" for Guinness. We still say that.

Vona Groarke's Other People's Houses is published by Gallery Press

Joe O'Connor

I found a copy of Ulysses in my parents' house when I was about 17. I still have that copy. I've read it twice now. The first time was in college, and the second about three or four years ago. When I read it for the second time, I wondered if I would respond to it differently. The first time I'd read it, I understood it. I read it the second time to see if I'd have a more emotional response to it. I don't think I did, though.

I don't think we should be intimidated by Joyce. We shouldn't treat Ulysses as if it was the Bible. Parts of it are tedious - huge chunks of it. It's not as bad as Finnegans Wake, though. The most admirable bit of Ulysses is the ambition of it. I'll read it a third time, absolutely. Sometime when I have about six months to spare . . .

Joseph O'Connor's The Salesman is published by Vintage

Antonia Logue

I have four copies of Ulysses - but I haven't read it yet. It's the only book I have multiple copies of. That's because I keep starting it, and then mislaying the book, so I have to buy another one the next time I try to read it.

It's the biggest gap in terms of books I'd like to have read. I managed to get through four years of an English degree in Trinity without reading it. I have dipped into it, though. I've read about the first third of it, but I've always left it down and gone off and done something else.

It's dreadful not to have read it, but I'm definitely going to read it before I write my next novel. There are certain things that people everywhere agree on, and everyone says this is one of the greatest books ever written. But nobody ever specifies what's so fantastic about it. I think I'm a bit sacred of it. It seems so mythical and daunting the way people talk about it.

Antonia Logue's Shadow-Box is published by Bloomsbury

Philip Casey

When I was 17, I got kicked by a cow and I had to spend a month in bed, recovering. My mother brought me home a copy of Ulysses from Webb's bookshop in Wexford. I'd never heard of James Joyce at the time. To me, it was just another book.

I read the whole thing in bed. Of course, I hadn't a clue what it was about, but I was enthralled by it. It was like a beacon from the outside world. Ulysses was one of the first literary books I'd ever read. It was a baptism by fire.

Every Bloomsday, I open Ulysses at random, dip into a chapter, and read for a couple of hours. I think it's the great book of the 20th century. Every time I go back to it, it's still completely fresh and exciting.

As you get older, you understand a bit more of it every time. It was only when I heard the RTE 24-hour edition on the radio that I understood what the last bit in the book was about. You can be damn sure I went back and reread that part again!

Philip Casey's The Water Star is published by Picador

Christy Nolan

While I haven't read the novel yet I still have ideas about it. They stem from years of listening to my father going on about Ulysses. While the girth of the book frightens me, I have, I think, come up with the solution - I've just bought it on tape!

The name "Joyce" is where literature is the world over. His name is magical worldwide. His name is Irish and respectably so, for he has created a kinky love story and set the lingering godsend here in the city of Dublin.

In Ireland we judge him very harshly. We think for and through him, giving him motives which I doubt he ever countenanced; his bleary eyes working him through years of trauma and writing.

Joyce has written the greatest novel ever to see the French sky. He has hunted where the human heart gropes for love. He has, in my opinion, hinted only maybe of the fury yet before us and, but for him, the 16th of June would be just that, the thin date on the waffling calendar.

Christy Nolan's The Banyan Tree is published by Phoenix House