Know what you're walking into
There is no single authorized Greek mythology. The stories survive across a thousand years of poets who cheerfully contradicted each other; Hesiod's Aphrodite and Homer's have different parents. Treat the contradictions as a feature. Myths were a living argument about gods, fate, and family, not a finished encyclopedia.
The books, in reading order
Mythos · Stephen Fry (2017)
The friendliest front door: creation to the age of heroes, told by a comedian who loves the material and footnotes his own jokes. Fry continues with Heroes (2018) and Troy (2020). What you lose in scholarly caution you gain in actually finishing.
Mythology · Edith Hamilton (1942)
The classic schoolroom reference, still the best single volume for looking things up: compact retellings, clearly organized, with the Norse tacked on at the back. Drier than Fry, more durable as a shelf reference.
The Odyssey · Emily Wilson's translation (2017)
The first English translation of the Odyssey by a woman, in clean iambic pentameter that reads at speaking pace. If you meet one primary text, make it this one; her Iliad (2023) awaits when you're ready for the war.
Circe · Madeline Miller (2018)
The modern novel route: the witch of Aiaia given a full life and a grievance. Miller's The Song of Achilles does the same for Patroclus. Fiction, openly, and responsible for more new mythology readers than any textbook this decade.
Theogony and Works and Days · Hesiod
For when you want the raw material: the genealogy of the gods from a Boeotian farmer-poet, short enough to read in an evening and strange enough to remember.
The stories to know first
If you want a minimum viable syllabus: the Titanomachy (how Zeus's generation took power), Persephone and Demeter (why winter), Prometheus (why fire, and why punishment), Orpheus and Eurydice (why you don't look back), and the Trojan cycle from judgment of Paris to homecoming. Those five threads hold up most of Western literature's references.
Past Greece, and the daily route
Greece is one pantheon among dozens, and the others are less crowded. Our mythology books guide covers the wider field, including Norse. For the habit version, 365 Days of Mythology tells one myth a day for a year across 30+ traditions, Greek included, ★4.7 across 39 Amazon ratings, and it makes an unusually safe gift; see our book gift guide for whom it fits.
Common questions
What's the best first book on Greek mythology?
Stephen Fry's Mythos for reading pleasure, Edith Hamilton's Mythology for a reference. Fry gets you hooked; Hamilton answers questions for the next decade.
Should I read the Iliad and Odyssey first?
No. Start with retellings, then meet Homer through Emily Wilson's Odyssey once the names are familiar. Primary texts reward a reader who already knows the map.
Why do the myths contradict each other?
Because they were composed by many poets across centuries for different audiences. There was never one official version; the contradictions are the tradition.
Is Greek mythology suitable for kids?
In the right retelling, famously so. D'Aulaires' Book of Greek Myths (1962) has been the standard children's edition for sixty years. The originals are considerably less curated.