The book starts out with a man named Odysseus. He goes away to the Trojan War the day his son is born. He stays in the war until it's over, which is about 10 years. He has been waiting all those years to see his son and wife, because he misses them dearly. On his journey home he encounters many obstacles. He has to stop at islands to get food and such and it seems that the whole world is against him in everything he does.

Odysseus's first stop is the island of the Cicones. While in a battle there Odysseus loses quite a few men because they are on foot and the Cicones have the advantage of being on horseback. The second stop Odysseus makes is the island of the lotus-eaters. When he tries to get his men to leave the island they are so attracted to the lotus-plant that they don't want to leave. The third place he wanders upon is the island of the Cyclops. Things turn bad when he finds out that the men on the island are giants, with one eye. The leader Polyphemus, of the Cyclops, eats some of Odysseus's men. To get his revenge Odysseus blinds Polyphemus while he is sleeping by burning his eye. When he is on his way off the island he is told that Polyphemus's dad is Poseidon, the god of the sea. At this point Odysseus realizes that he isn't going to have an easy journey home.

The next place Odysseus ends up on is the island of the wind god. Nothing bad happens while on the island. Near to his destination when he can actually see the coast of Ithaca, some of his men open a sack of winds that Aelous gave to Odysseus. Immediately their boat gets blown to the island of the Laestrygonians. While he is there some of his men get eaten by cannibals so they get off the island as quickly as possible. Next he arrives at the island where Circe lives. It doesn't seem like anything is wrong on the island until some of his men are turned into animals. So he goes and finds out that Circe did this. Then Circes ends up falling in love with Odysseus. He thinks he has only been on the island for three days but it ends up he's been on it for 5 years. So now he has been gone from his family for 15 years. Odysseus asks Circe if she knows how to get back to Ithaca. She tells him to go to the underworld and talk to Tiresias, who has died, but has taken the journey before. While he is down there he finds out that his mother has died. He then returns to Circe's island again.

After he leaves Circes' island he goes past the island of the Sirens and puts bees wax in his men's ears because Circes has warned him that that the island of the Sirens has an attractive song that will lure them to the island. The only person that does not put the bees wax in his ears is Odysseus, so that he can tell everyone else when the song is over so they can take the bees wax out of their ears. He then sails past Charybdis so that they are not sucked into the ocean by the whirl pool. After that he encounters Scylla, a six headed monster that will eat six of Odysseus's men. The reason that Odysseus chooses Scylla and not Charybdis is because Scylla will only eat six of his men and Charybdis would kill him, along with all of his men.

When he gets past Scylla and Charybdis he ends up at Thrinacia, where the island of the sun god lives. Odysseus's leaves to go pray to Athena. While he is gone his men eat all of the sun god's cattle, which they were forbidden to eat. When they are about to leave Zeus throws bolts of lightening at their boat and everyone dies but Odysseus because he did not partake in the eating of the cattle. He floats to where Calypso lives. Although she is nice, she won't let Odysseus leave her island. She finally lets Odysseus go when Hermes tells her that Zeus has ordered her to let him go.

After being released Odysseus goes to Phaeacia, and tells them about his journey and leaves. He finally reaches his homeland of Ithaca 20 years after he left. When he arrives at Ithaca he finds out that there are many suitors that want to marry his wife. He puts on a disguise and finds out who is loyal to him. After telling his son, Telemachus, who he is, Odysseus gets his help one night by killing all the suitors who were unfaithful to him. After that, Odysseus could finally spend time with his family.