A festival to commemorate the centenary of Bloomsbury, the day on which the events of Ulysses took place, is to be held in Dublin, Ireland. The city has planned a three-month festival of celebrations around that day – June 16, 1904.

Scholars and fans from around the globe intend to visit the Irish capital for the festival.

However, the only living direct descendant of Joyce has promised to disrupt the festival by banning any public readings of his work. Stephen Joyce, the writer’s grandson, has informed the Irish government that he will sue for breach of copyright if any recitations take place.

Roddy Doyle, the celebrated Irish author and Booker prize winner has slammed the epic story of one day in the life of Leopold Bloom as overrated, overlong and unmoving. “Ulysses could have done with a good editor,” Doyle told a stunned audience in New York gathered to celebrate the great man who is credited with inventing the modern novel.

Online bookseller Amazon.co.uk has sold 97,107 copies of Roddy Doyle's Paddy Clarke Ha Ha Ha and 2,374 copies of James Joyce's Ulysses.

A biography, James Joyce by Edna O’Brien, has received the LeafSalon thumbs up as a personal account of the author's development of language and ideas that may encourage our readers to form their own opinion.