Taking “best” to mean, “About to be banished to a small, rocky island in the North Atlantic, can pack one book”: Ulysses, and it’s not particularly close.
The book is fractally intricate and intellectually puzzling in the best sense—something new and special to notice every time you pick it up.
But it also wears like old
leather, and I find myself returning to favorite chapters simply to sink indulgently into the characters, dialog, and setting.
Anybody who says no one has actually read Ulysses is unknowingly half-right: You can certainly get to a point where you’ll never finish reading it.
The book is fractally intricate and intellectually puzzling in the best sense—something new and special to notice every time you pick it up.
But it also wears like old leather, and I find myself returning to favorite chapters simply to sink indulgently into the characters, dialog, and setting.
Anybody who says no one has actually read Ulysses is unknowingly half-right: You can certainly get to a point where you’ll never finish reading it.