This Tuesday, 16 June, is known to Joyceans around the world (including many Salonistas) as ‘Bloomsday’, the date in 1904 on which Leopold Bloom took the epic fictional journey around Dublin described in Ulysses.
Bloomsday 2026 will see the final meeting of our current group reading Ulysses and the announcement of our 2027 studies of this extraordinary book starting on 12 January, with 21 meetings offered at two alternative times: 12.00-2.00pm and 5.30-7.30pm (UK time).
Toby Brothers, founder and director of The London Literary Salon has been leading studies of this legendarily challenging work every year since 2006 and is still finding new excitement in a text which she believes will leave anyone a better reader and a broader thinker. She explains:
“The good news: reading Ulysses is fun. And I don’t mean in a frustrating, overly-analytical see-how-much-you-know-way. The language is amazing, even when I don’t understand it. Perhaps, especially when I don’t understand it, because meaning sneaks in through more than my critical faculty. Meaning slides in through sound, through the lushness of the language, through the filmy and substantial images, and suddenly I find myself transported from a walk on a beach to a contemplation of the origins of man – thanks, James Joyce.”
At The London Literary Salon we always like to mark Bloomsday in some way, often from our base in London and sometimes in Dublin, where we expect to celebrate the occasion in 2027. This year we will be holding an informal morning meeting on Hampstead Heath where Ulysses enthusiasts will read favourite passages from the book, followed by an online evening meeting where current and past participants in Ulysses studies will also share readings and appreciation of Joyce’s contribution to world literature.
For anyone in London seeking a theatrical experience of Bloomsday, our friends at the Balloonatics Theatre Company will be holding their fifth Bloomsday Morning Walk on Sunday 21 June, performing scenes from the book on the streets of Tufnell Park!
Photos of past Ulysses related events in London and Dublin:
Email us at litsalon@gmail.com with any questions you have about our plans to study and celebrate Ulysses.
