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Though Ulysses is widely regarded as a "difficult" novel, this fresh and lively reading shows its comic genius as well as its great moments of poignance, making it more accessible than ever before.

Acclaimed author JG Farrell came to fame with his Empire Trilogy, exploring the collapse of British colonialism and its repercussions in three different countries. The first book in the series, Troubles, won the Geoffrey Faber Memorial Prize and the Lost Man Booker Prize, while the second, The Siege of Krishnapur, was awarded the Booker Prize for Fiction. Included here are three BBC Radio adaptations of the trilogy, plus an edition of Witness History exploring Farrell's tragic accidental death.

These novelists burst with a literary energy that is hard to contain. They cover a myriad of styles and themes, narratives packed full of fully-formed characters in powerful tales that have become an essential and integral part of our literary heritage.

Three men, Kevin, Dermot and Joe, stand and tell their stories on a bare stage. They never meet. Or do they? From this simplest of dramatic devices emerges a rounded tale of Irish life across the generations, accurate and poignant and therefore unforgettable: The poetry of ordinary life.

Thorndyke is arguably the first true forensic detective, for while we remember Sherlock Holmes for his genius in unearthing significant detail, only Thorndyke's methods pass the test of real-world authenticity. It might be maintained that while Holmes perhaps did it with style, Thorndyke does it with science.

Holding none of the difficulties of Joyce's most powerful and moving prose. Holding none of the difficulties of Joyce's later novels, such as Ulysses, Dubliners is, in its way, just as radical. These stories introduce us to the city which fed Joyce's entire creative output, and to many of the characters who made it such a well of literary inspiration.

Ulysses is regarded by many as the single most important novel of the 20th century. It tells the story of one day in Dublin, 16 June 1904, largely through the eyes of Stephen Dedalus (Joyce's alter ego from Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man) and Leopold Bloom, an advertising salesman. Both begin a normal day, and both set off on a journey around the streets of Dublin, which eventually brings them into contact with one another.

Ulysses is regarded by many as the single most important novel of the 20th century. It tells the story of one day in Dublin, 16 June 1904, largely through the eyes of Stephen Dedalus (Joyce's alter ego from Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man) and Leopold Bloom, an advertising salesman. Both begin a normal day, and both set off on a journey around the streets of Dublin, which eventually brings them into contact with one another.

Sadness can be about so many things from places to people, from thoughts to actions. Our classic authors including Arnold Bennett, James Joyce, Willa Cather, Joseph Conrad, Ivan Turgenev and many others use their pens and stories to demonstrate the many ways this feeling can take a hold of lives and its consequences.

An old man looks back on a chequered life, concealing truths he will not reveal until the end. Fire in the Blood starts quietly, lyrically, but then races away with narrative twists and surprise revelations. A young man, newly married, is found drowned in the mill stream; an old man is more concerned about the repayment of a debt than with his young wife; a young woman asks Silvio to plead her case; no-one is quite as they seem.

James Joyce's Dubliners is a collection of short stories about the lives of the people of Dublin around the turn of the century. Each story describes a small but significant moment of crisis or revelation in the life of a particular Dubliner, sympathetically but always with stark honesty. Many of the characters are desperate to escape the confines of their humdrum lives, though those that have the opportunity to do so seem unable to take it.

Set against the background of Dublin at the turn of the century, Joyce's celebrated collection of short stories recount a series of unremarkable incidents in the lives of ordinary men and women. Stylistically straightforward, it is Joyce's eye for detail, matched only by his interest in the habits and patterns of daily life and celebration of the unique wit and landscape of the Irish, that makes these stories so enchanting.

Ulysses is regarded by many as the single most important novel of the 20th century. It tells the story of one day in Dublin, 16 June 1904, largely through the eyes of Stephen Dedalus (Joyce's alter ego from Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man) and Leopold Bloom, an advertising salesman. Both begin a normal day, and both set off on a journey around the streets of Dublin, which eventually brings them into contact with one another.

The inevitable is understood by each and every one of us who faces the final calling. So too are the effects on those left behind. The memories are there but the empty space, the void can never be refilled. It remains a dark, unreliable pit of loneliness. The sadness and often depression, the lack of will to continue may swamp us all. Unquenchable, undeniable. But loss can, after mourning, give the opportunity to reappraise the lost and how we can each move forward. In the literary world an accessible balance can be given.

In A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, Joyce describes the early life of Stephen Dedalus: significant memories from infancy, schooldays, family life, his first taste of sin, guilt, repentance - and his passage to freedom as he elects to leave Ireland forever. This is, in effect, an autobiography. Dedalus is Joyce; every person he encounters and every incident he experiences, is drawn from life. The writing, though, displays the colour and imagination of the very finest fiction.

When a torrid love affair shakes the very foundations of Lorraine Cheevers' world, she flees to Trawbawn, a seaside idyll of innocent childhood summers. Meanwhile a teenage boy lies in a coma in hospital and his father, Michael Carmody, is desperately searching for the people who put him there. His search leads him to Trawbawn and to a powerful and unexpected attraction. As time stands still for young Killan, it threatens to run out for a man and woman trying to put right their shattered pasts.

Christmas may come but once a year but human emotions, the driving force of our characters, are with us every day. Yet, somehow these same emotions when they happen at Christmas seem amplified; we seem more tender to their touch, their words. Whether it’s a long-lost returning soldier wondering how best to return to the arms of his family without too great a risk of shock... Or a prodigal son whose taken path has driven pain into his own and others hearts… These stories reveal much about the human condition.

In this series we explore the many facets of love through literary talents that span both time and country. There are times when love is not a revelation and a calling from one soul to another but a carefully navigated path, or maybe a badly chosen path that decimates happiness. Which way will our literary leviathans take us? Inevitably it will be more than one.

This is a story from the Dubliners, Volume 2 collection.

This is a story from the Dubliners, Volume 1 collection. James Joyce's Dubliners is a collection of short stories about the lives of the people of Dublin around the turn of the century. Each story describes a small but significant moment of crisis or revelation in the life of a particular Dubliner, sympathetically but always with stark honesty. Many of the characters are desperate to escape the confines of their humdrum lives, though those that have the opportunity to do so seem unable to take it.