Even though I studied English in university, I haven’t read Ulysses by James Joyce. I meant to, but it wasn’t in the curriculum, so it’s remained on my “to read” list ever since.

There’s good news for those of us who have yet to read this classic. On June 16, if you can find time to get on Twitter, you’ll have time to read Ulysses.

OK, it won’t be exactly the way Joyce wrote it. Volunteers from all over the world will narrow down sections of the book to a series of tweets to celebrate Bloomsday.

This will be an interesting experiment to see what social media can do for classic literature. I still want to read Ulysses in its entirety, the way Joyce intended. But this experiment has put this more in the forefront of my mind than it was, say, a month ago.

Maybe social media will increase the popularity of reading classic novels. Young people who have never heard of James Joyce will run out to the nearest bookstore or library to get their hands on a book. Maybe not. But they might download the ebook.

James Joyce