The Complete Ulysses is a recording for radio and audio media. We will record every word of Ulysses by James Joyce - the first American production of Ulysses using mostly American and Irish-American actors like Alec Baldwin, John Lithgow, Jerry Stiller, Garrison Keillor, Anne Meara, Wallace Shawn, Bob Dishy, Anne Enright, Bob Odenkirk, Pulitzer-Prize-winning poet Paul Muldoon,and Caraid O’Brien as Molly Bloom. Caraid is also our director.

The recordings will be available, as soon as each chapter is finished, on almost all current and future audio media: streamed from this website; as podcasts, mp3 files on iTunes or on a flash drive; and when the book is finished, as a boxed set of CDs.  Excerpts will be heard on Radio Bloomsday every June 16 on WBAI 99.5 FM New York and wbai.org, and on other Pacifica stations and affiliates.  The pre-recorded excerpts are available on this website.

The project began more than 30 years ago, when WBAI broadcast a marathon reading of Ulysses from the Shakespeare & Co. bookstore at 81st and Broadway in New York.  In 1981 when the bookstore inevitably gave way to a discount cosmetics outlet, Larry Josephson took the idea of a long-form radio reading of Ulysses to Isaiah Sheffer, then Artistic Director of Symphony Space.  Larry and Isaiah created Bloomsday on Broadway, a live, staged reading of excerpts from Ulysses and other Irish literature and song.  The first broadcast ran more than 18 hours and was heard on WBAI and public radio stations nationwide.

In 2008, Larry Josephson created Radio Bloomsday, a radio-only reading from the studios of WBAI, featuring live and pre-recorded readings from Ulysses and lots of other things Irish.  Larry asked Caraid O’Brien to direct and to read Molly Bloom’s soliloquy.  Janet Coleman, WBAI’s Arts Director, is a co-creator with Larry and Caraid, of the annual broadcast.

After several years of recording excerpts with actors like Alec Baldwin, John Lithgow, Jerry Stiller and Anne Meara, Larry got the “insane” idea of recording the entire book, which will run about 30 hours.  Stay tuned to this website for news of our progress.

Read more about….

Ulysses & James Joyce

Origins of Bloomsday

Radio Bloomsday