Nolan’s film could make The Odyssey the most sought-after book in the US
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- The Odyssey print sales are up 76% year-to-date across all US editions per Circana BookScan, with Emily Wilson's WW Norton translation leading as the bestselling edition after 2025 sales rose 42% over the prior year.
- Books Are Magic in Brooklyn sold 80 copies of Wilson's translation in July — up from "single digits" — and installed a dedicated Odyssey display that drew a steady stream of Gen Z browsers.
- The New York Public Library reported a 338% increase in demand across print, audiobook, and ebook editions of The Odyssey between July 2 and July 30, with chief librarian Brian Bannon saying patrons are reading and re-reading the poem.
- Barnes & Noble CEO James Daunt told Bloomberg that Homer is currently the chain's best-selling author, while WW Norton said domestic sales across all formats of Wilson's 2017 translation surpassed one million copies by early July.
- Madeline Miller's Circe is also seeing a sales bump at Books Are Magic thanks to Samantha Morton's critically acclaimed portrayal of the character in the film, and children's Odyssey adaptations are selling unexpectedly well to first-time mythology readers.
- Scholar Emily Wilson publicly criticized the film as lacking "psychological, emotional, political and ethical depth," while classicist Mary Beard said it underplays the poem's strongest women — yet both credited it with reviving interest in Homer.
- Booksellers at Books Are Magic expect the surge to last another two to three months before settling back, noting that children's adaptations, retellings, and graphic novels are all outperforming prior expectations alongside the Wilson translation.
Why it matters: Nolan's adaptation has translated a $640M box-office hit into measurable cultural impact — a 76% YTD jump in print sales, a 338% spike in library demand, and over one million copies of Wilson's translation sold — while the scholar who helped inspire the film publicly called it shallow, a controversy that booksellers say is driving readers to her translation rather than away from it.
