Reading Joyce

Of the making of books about James Joyce there is no end, but Reading Joyceby David Pierce is something special.  It is the distillation of a lifetimes immersion as a teacher and critic in the work of a great but dauntingly difficult modern writer.  I can think of no better companion for anyone embarking on a serious exploration of Joyces work, but seasoned Joyceans will also find much to delight and inform them here.  It is a literary as well as a critical achievement, a unique blend of commentary and confession,  biography and autobiography, illustrated throughout by a profusion of fascinating photographs, drawings, maps and other images which evoke the world of James Joyce and the ways in which his books have been received.

David Lodge

Many critics of James Joyce are smart: David Pierce is also wise. Reading Joycebrilliantly and judiciously uses his experiences as a fine teacher, a major scholar - and an open, receptive reader. And few critics are so skillfully alert to the actual, material, visible world in which Joyces works take place.

Morris Beja, author of James Joyce: A Literary Life, and former President, the International James Joyce Foundation

This is a brave, richly informed, and candid book, an engaging mix of biography, autobiography, and critical analysis. A godsend to teachers and students alike, it  brilliantly demystifies Joyce, without compromising his complexity. It is a uniquely personal odyssey of discovery which all Joyceans will recognise as their own, too.

Professor Terry Dolan, University College Dublin

Reading Joyceis an ideal introduction to the works of the Master. Unlike many writers on Joyce, Pierce chooses to address the reader on terms of equality rather than to revel self-regardingly in difficulties or to confuse them with a theoretical overlay which Joyce himself would have laughed at. This book presents Joyce mediated by an urbane and witty expert, who expects the same qualities in his readers. Pierce does not flagellate himself - as too many Joyceans do - over trifles or theories and does not expect his readers to do so either.

 Mr. Justice Adrian Hardiman, M.R.I.A., Supreme Court of Ireland