Hi, Lit, I was hoping you could help me understand this book.

Odyssey, A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man and Hamlet are a must. I'd say these are enough to get a basic grasp, but there's so much more to read if you want to get it more. For example, lots of Irish history, and world history too, other Shakespeare's work, certain poets (Yeats, Keats etc) and so on and so forth.
Don't be discouraged when you realize that you won't get it all, nobody ever does. I'm sure Joyce put in some personal things which no one would get other than him.

>>8407449
What do you mean by "get it all"?

http://blog.frankdelaney.com/re-joyce/

You don't need to understand all the references or, even, any of them.
You don't need to read the Odyssey. If you do not have chapter titles (which normally aren't in the text) or do not look up the Linati or Gilbert schema on your own side, there will be very little that you can link with the Odyssey in Ulysses. It's a structural curiosity regarding the whole more than a truly meaningful aspect of the text you will be reading.
You will understand things quicker and easier if you read Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man. Consider it the prequel to half of Ulysses.
There is one chapter which will not mean much to you without knowledge of Hamlet.

If there is something specific you feel you're not getting but want to, check out an annotated version. I thought there was one online similar to Finnegans Wake but this is the best I could find:
>http://www.columbia.edu/~fms5/ulys.htm