Reddit reviews Ulysses Unbound: A Reader's Companion to James Joyce's Ulysses

Here is some quick advice from someone who studied Ulysses at a top Dublin University:

1. Get Ulysses Unbound:
   This is a very well-respected guide. It doesn't hold your hand but gives you just enough to enjoy every chapter. The much more extensive Ulysses Annotated is also available for those who want more assistance but it is outdated now and full of errors.
   
   
2. Use the Gabler Edition: The editorial history of Ulysses is just awful. The book is full of very precise jokes that have been lost with poor editing. Gabler goes back to the original manuscripts and tries to create a more faithful book.
   
   
3. Take your time: We read a chapter a week and discussed it in class. A chapter a week is ridiculously slow for any normal book but perfectly reasonable for Ulysses, especially for your first read-through.

I used Terrence Killeen's Ulysses Unbound during a recent reading and found it to be very helpful. It is structured in that each chapter is given a plot summary, along with it's Odyssey parallel, as well as a stylistic analysis and a more general, overall discussion, topped off with historical notes and a glossary of the more obscure terms employed by Joyce (of which there are many, particularly for non-Irish readers). Everything you need, really.