February 2, 1922: James Joyce’s Ulysses is published.

Written completely in stream-of-consciousness, Joyce’s controversial book tops the Modern Library’s list of 100 Best Novels of the 20th Century; only 1,000 copies of the first edition (pictured) were ever published, and the surviving copies now sell for hundreds of thousands of of dollars.

And, as an example of the strangeness of the book: the last section of the novel is a 13,000 word long soliloquy, divided into two sentences. The soliloquy, and the novel, end this way:

“I was a Flower of the mountain yes when I put the rose in my hair like the Andalusian girls used or shall I wear a red yes and how he kissed me under the Moorish wall and I thought well as well him as another and then I asked him with my eyes to ask again yes and then he asked me would I yes to say yes my mountain flower and first I put my arms around him yes and drew him down to me so he could feel my breasts all perfume yes and his heart was going like mad and yes I said yes I will Yes.”

If, perhaps, you are up for a literary challenge, then Ulysses is probably the book for you.