Not many verbal artifacts are cooler than the first edition of James Joyce's "Ulysses," which was published, in Paris, on February 2, 1922, the author's fortieth birthday. As is standard for books published in France, it is paperbound, an aqua-blue cover with white lettering"the colors of the Greek flag, as Joyce had requested. It somehow looks like a giant lozenge, a blue cough drop for Zeus.
SOURCE: The New Yorker at 08:18AM on June 16, 2016