Nolan’s film could make The Odyssey the most sought-after book in the US

Christopher Nolan’s new movie The Odyssey has already broken several records, but its most significant accomplishment might be turning a nearly 2,700-year-old epic poem into the most sought-after book in America. Libraries and bookstores alike are experiencing a rush.

At the popular independent bookstore Books Are Magic in Brooklyn, New York, last week, evidence sat just inside the front entrance. A display stacked with more than a dozen editions of The Odyssey – from Emily Wilson’s acclaimed translation to graphic novels and children’s story versions – was drawing a steady stream of browsers, many of them Gen Z readers who became interested after seeing Nolan’s latest blockbuster.

Just a month ago, the store sold only a handful of copies of Homer’s classic. In July, sales multiplied by several thousand percent.

“We sold 80 copies of just the Wilson book this month,” said Nicole Vasquez, a Books Are Magic employee who helps oversee the store’s marketing. “Before, it was single digits in sales.”

The whimsical bookshop, founded in 2017 by novelist Emma Straub and her husband Michael Fusco-Straub, has built a reputation as one of New York’s most influential independent booksellers, with more than 280,000 Instagram followers and a loyal young customer base. Employees said demand had already begun climbing before they installed a dedicated Odyssey display just days ago.

“As soon as the movie came out and people went to go see it, they came to read the book,” Vasquez said. And this phenomenon extends well beyond the Brooklyn arty scene.

According to Circana BookScan data reported by Publishers Weekly, year-to-date US print sales across all editions of The Odyssey are up 76%. Emily Wilson’s translation, published by WW Norton, is the bestselling edition, followed by Penguin Classics’ Robert Fagles translation and Gareth Hinds’ graphic novel adaptation. Sales had already been trending upward after Nolan announced the project in December 2024, with 2025 sales rising 42% over the previous year.

Wilson’s translation has also remained among Amazon’s top 10 bestselling books since the film’s release, alongside Andy Weir’s Project Hail Mary, another novel enjoying renewed attention thanks to a recent successful film adaptation.

WW Norton said momentum has been building ever since Nolan announced the project. Louise Brockett, head of communications, told the Philadelphia Inquirer that domestic sales across all formats of classics scholar Wilson’s 2017 book had surpassed one million copies by early July.

Booksellers say the appeal stretches beyond longtime fans of Greek mythology, with children’s adaptations becoming unexpectedly popular.

“These are newer to the store,” Vasquez said, gesturing towards the children’s section that contains its own separate Odyssey display. “They’ve been selling pretty well,” she added. “People were reading about Greek mythology who really never cared about it before.”

The renewed fascination has grown beyond Homer himself. Books inspired by Greek mythology – including Madeline Miller’s Circe, whose title character appears in The Odyssey – are also seeing increased interest.

“There’s also retellings that are selling more,” Vasquez said. “Circe has been really popular because of the character in the movie [played to critical acclaim by Samantha Morton], so people want to read more about her.”

Blockbuster adaptations often create a jump in the market for the novels they are based on. “When Hamnet came out, our sales for Hamnet were crazy,” Vasquez said. “When that Frankenstein movie came out, we sold so many copies of Frankenstein.” She expects the current surge of Homer’s epic to last another two or three months before settling back toward normal levels.

Books are Magic colleague Yeshim Kayim-Yanko said Nolan’s film has succeeded in introducing a classic that many readers previously associated only with high school English classes.

“It’s nice to see people who wouldn’t have necessarily picked up The Odyssey normally,” Kayim-Yanko said. “It’s bringing light to this classic story. People don’t usually gravitate towards it to just read on their leisure. That is what’s happening for this film.”

She also believes public discussion surrounding Wilson’s translation – including recent criticism Wilson made of the film adaptation – has only fueled curiosity.

“Everybody’s just like, ‘I want to get the tea, I want to hear the gossip, and I want to read her translation,’” Kayim-Yanko said. The controversy surrounding the film started well before Wilson’s comments, with chronically online rightwingers rallying against Nolan’s casting decisions, insisting the film would be a flop.

“That boycott wasn’t really successful, to say the least,” Vasquez said with a laugh.

Libraries are also experiencing a massive surge in demand, placing the poem on waiting lists across the country. The New York Public Library told the Guardian it saw a 338% increase in demand across print, audiobook and ebook editions of The Odyssey between 2 July and 30 July.

“We’ve seen a huge jump in demand for The Odyssey over the past month, and are delighted that so many of our patrons are reading and even re-reading this epic novel,” Brian Bannon, the library’s chief librarian and director of branch libraries and education said.

The trend has also caught the attention of the nation’s largest bricks-and-mortar bookseller. Barnes & Noble CEO James Daunt told Bloomberg last Wednesday of the ancient Greek that “right now, our best-selling book is by an author called Homer.”

While some rightwingers attacked the film for being too diverse some classicists leveled nearly the opposite critique, arguing that the adaptation loses much of the emotional richness and complexity that has made the story endure for nearly three millennia.

Wilson, who influenced Nolan, wrote that the film “lacks psychological, emotional, political and ethical depth” and has “nothing convincing to say” about the poem’s deeper themes of memory, war, family and homecoming.

Classicist Mary Beard said on the Guardian’s Stateside podcast, that Nolan’s adaptation underplays many of the poem’s strongest women and lacks the poem’s “elusive sexiness”.

Yet both scholars correctly predicted what they saw as becoming the film’s greatest achievement: inspiring audiences to return to Homer.

Beard concluded that Nolan “is doing his best to get the general public reading again”.