Why Is The Odyssey Bringing Old Books Back to Life in Seoul and America?

What happens when a new movie sends people looking for a book that is nearly 3,000 years old?

In Seoul and across the United States, the answer is surprisingly simple:

People start reading Homer again.

Christopher Nolan's The Odyssey is not only bringing an ancient story to enormous movie screens. It is also sending audiences back to bookstores and libraries in search of the story behind the spectacle.

A new movie has made an old book feel new again.

In Seoul, an Ancient Story Comes Back from Childhood

For many Koreans, especially those who grew up in the 1990s and 2000s, Greek mythology is not entirely unfamiliar.

It may have started with a comic book on a child's bookshelf.

Zeus, Athena, Poseidon, Odysseus, and countless monsters and heroes were introduced through illustrated books, animations, games, and television programs.

For an entire generation, Greek mythology became part of childhood.

Now those children are adults.

And they are meeting the stories again—not on the pages of a children's comic book, but on the giant screen of a modern cinema.

That connection appears to be especially strong in Korea. Recent reports have highlighted how audiences who grew up with Greek mythology are connecting their childhood memories with Nolan's film. The interest has also moved beyond theaters, with readers seeking translations of Homer's original work, introductory books, commentaries, and graphic novels.

The numbers are striking.

According to Kyobo Book Centre, sales of books with titles containing “Odyssey” or “Odysseia” increased by 595.5 percent in July compared with the same month a year earlier.

The movie did not simply create interest in a new book.

It revived interest in an old one.

And Then There Is America

The same thing is happening on the other side of the Pacific.

In the United States, print sales of The Odyssey across all editions were already up 76 percent year-to-date before the movie's release, according to Circana BookScan data reported by Publishers Weekly.

The increase accelerated dramatically after the film opened.

Emily Wilson's widely praised 2017 translation sold more than 17,500 print copies during the week of the movie's release. The following week, it sold more than 31,000 copies, making it the second bestselling book in America that week.

At Books Are Magic, an independent bookstore in Brooklyn, the change was even more visible.

The store had previously sold only a handful of copies of The Odyssey. In July, it sold 80 copies of Wilson's translation alone.

Young readers, including many Gen Z customers, were coming into the store after seeing the movie.

Some wanted the original story.

Others wanted to understand the mythology behind the characters they had just seen on screen.

The movie had created a new generation of readers for an ancient poem.

From Movie Theater to Library

The revival has not been limited to bookstores.

Libraries are seeing it too.

The New York Public Library reported a 338 percent increase in demand for The Odyssey across print, audiobook, and ebook editions between July 2 and July 30.

In Ohio, the Cuyahoga County Public Library reported hundreds of holds for ebook and audiobook editions, while simplified versions and adaptations for younger readers were also being checked out.

That detail is important.

People are not simply buying one famous edition because a movie tells them to.

They are exploring.

They are comparing translations.

They are choosing graphic novels.

They are looking for children's versions.

They are discovering other stories inspired by Greek mythology.

The movie has become a doorway.

Two Countries, One Cultural Reaction

There is something fascinating about seeing the same phenomenon happen in Seoul and America at almost the same time.

But the emotional starting point is slightly different.

In Korea, the connection often begins with memory.

For many younger Korean adults, Greek mythology belongs to childhood. Seeing Odysseus, Athena, Poseidon, and the other figures on the screen can feel like opening an old box of memories.

In America, the reaction appears more strongly connected to rediscovery.

Many readers encounter Homer's epic through school, literature classes, or the cultural idea of “the classics.” Nolan's film gives them a reason to return to a book they may have never read—or to finally read it outside the classroom.

One audience remembers.

The other discovers.

But both end up in the same place:

The bookstore.

Why Does an Ancient Story Still Work?

Perhaps this is the most interesting question.

The Odyssey was created almost three thousand years ago.

Yet its central concerns remain remarkably recognizable.

A person leaves home.

A person wants to return.

War changes people.

Families wait.

People wonder whether someone who has been away for years is still the person they remember.

And sometimes, when that person finally comes home, the hardest part is being recognized.

These are not ancient problems.

They are human problems.

Perhaps that is why an enormous Hollywood production can make audiences curious about a poem that predates modern books, modern theaters, and even the modern idea of a novel.

The technology is new.

The questions are not.

The Movie Is Not Replacing the Book

There is an easy assumption that people today are moving away from books because of movies, streaming, and short-form video.

The Odyssey offers a more complicated picture.

A movie can sometimes send people in the opposite direction.

From the screen to the page.

From spectacle to literature.

From a new interpretation to an ancient original.

Christopher Nolan's film may be one of the most technologically ambitious ways imaginable to tell an old story.

Yet one of its most interesting consequences is remarkably quiet.

People are sitting down and reading.

An Ancient Journey Takes a New Route

Odysseus spends years trying to get home to Ithaca.

Today, his journey is taking a very different route.

From ancient Greece to Hollywood.

From Hollywood to Seoul and American movie theaters.

And from those theaters back to bookstores and libraries.

The story has traveled for thousands of years.

And now, in 2026, a new generation is picking it up again.

Maybe that is the real power of a classic.

A truly old story does not disappear.

It waits.

Sometimes it waits for a new translation.

Sometimes for a new generation.

And sometimes, apparently, it waits for a spectacular movie to remind us that it was there all along.

In Seoul and America, people are not simply watching The Odyssey.

They are reading their way back into it.

                             Image : The Odyssey of Homer, 1853 — Library of Congress