Dubliners (Penguin Classics)

Although James Joyce left Ireland as a young man and spent most of his adult life on the European continent, all his books have Ireland as their geographic center. When asked near the end of his life if he ever intended to return to Ireland, Joyce responded candidly, "Have I ever left it?" In the fifteen classic stories that comprise Dubliners, James Joyce seeks to explore the "significance of trivial things." While the stories can be regarded as separate and independent entities, they can also be considered as parts of a larger whole, reinforcing and illuminating each other, acting as pieces of a mosaic that captures moods from childhood, young adulthood, courtship, and married life, as well as the public life of church, state, and the arts.