Bucket List Books: Reading Ulysses and Proust

Joyce and Proust can change our lives. So why don’t we read their works?

Too often, scholars suggest these authors aren’t for us. They’re important but inaccessible for any “regular” reader.

They’re wrong. Join our new reading group in English and explore these texts as Joyce and Proust intended: as wonderful and strange. “Silly” and “unpredictable”. And most important, all for us.

Beginners are welcome: No prior knowledge of Joyce, Proust or other literature necessary.

Each week, participants will read a section of Ulysses and of Remembrance of Things Past in advance. The following editions will be used: Remembrance of Things Past (Paperback), Penguin Classics Edition, and Ulysses: Annotated Students’ Edition (Paperback), Penguin Modern Classics Edition.

Locations will alternate between La Médiathèque of the Institut français (17 Queensberry Pl, South Kensington SW7 2DT) and the Irish Cultural Centre (5 Black’s Road, Hammersmith W6 9DT).

Jack Chellman, the moderator, is a Marshall Scholar and climate campaigner in London. He wrote his undergraduate thesis on Finnegans Wake and presented that work at the 2019 North American James Joyce Symposium in Mexico City. In 2022 he led the Ulysses Centenary Book Club through the London Irish Centre. In 2023 he led the Finnegans Wake Book Club through the Irish Cultural Centre and the Camden Council