The best books about the Hero's Journey

It doesn’t get any more epic or classic than Homer’s Odyssey. Of the many trials the hero overcomes, outwitting Polyphemus (the Cyclops), and tying himself to his ship’s mast to hear the alluring call of the Sirens, are my two favorites. Everything about this war-weary hero’s saga to return back from Troy to Ithaca is storytelling at its finest. I’ve always loved Greek mythology, and Homer demonstrates the capricious pettiness of the gods as they play games with us mere mortals. When Odysseus finally gets home, everything is changed. He’s changed. At least his dog still recognizes him. Read it and you will understand why this is a story that books are written about.

It’s almost impossible to discuss the Hero’s Journey without paying homage to Joseph Campbell’s The Hero With a Thousand Faces. This work by a noted mythologist and scholar is so instrumental in helping us to understand the story of humanity. This book helps me to appreciate that we are all storytellers, and our individual and collective stories are rooted in archetypes, myths, and heroic tales. I love his ability to dissect the cross-cultural features of the stories we tell. Campbell’s seminal work is among the most influential books of the twentieth century. It helps me to understand my own personal narrative and human history through the lens of story.

Middle Earth, as depicted in Tolkien’s The Hobbit, is such a magical place! This story absolutely enthralled me in my youth and helped to start a lifelong appreciation of rich fantasy. Wizards and dwarves and, of course, hobbits stimulated my imagination. What’s not to love? 

I studied this book in a college literature course and loved it even more for some of the themes and symbolism. Greed and power and how they both motivate and corrupt are part of the story. Mostly, the tale provides me with a magical place to escape to go on a quest together with Bilbo. As for a Hero’s Journey, it doesn’t get any more classic. Gandalf provides the call to action and the hitherto unassuming Bilbo finds himself on an unwanted and unexpected adventure. His account—There and Back Again—is a story of personal transformation and empowerment. He discovers that he’s got a strength and mettle he didn’t realize he possessed prior to leaving his comfortable hobbit-hole in the Shire. He’s also got a magic ring of power. Hmmm, that could be a problem.

I love when an author weaves social issues into the plot and character. Baum wrote an extensive political allegory in the guise of children’s literature. You have to know a little about the controversies of the time he wrote the story, especially backing paper currency with precious metals. Gold (yellow brick road), silver (Dorothy’s slippers are silver in the book), and greenbacks (the Emerald City is a metaphor for Washington, D.C.) are all in the story and reflect Baum’s views about the illusory value of paper money. More importantly, he is commentating upon power and wealth and oppression in America.

The narrative structure is a straightforward hero’s (heroine’s) journey–leave the current world (Kansas), travel on a dangerous adventure in a faraway place (Oz), and return home wiser and transformed. I first learned about this in an American history class. The movie adaptation of the book is great, but it doesn’t capture the full meaning and impact of the story. Lions, tigers, and bears–Oh my! I’ve just touched upon some of the symbolism in this political allegory.

This is an indispensable craft book. While Campbell provides in-depth analyses of myth and storytelling, Vogler takes the structural elements of writing a hero’s journey and provides detailed practical guidance about how to write using this narrative structure. In a sense, Campbell tells us what the ingredients are, but Vogler gives writers, such as myself, an instruction guide on how to mix these ingredients in plot and character arcs. 

Until I heard him speak and understood the depth and detail of this essential guide, I didn’t realize how influential Vogler is. I see that influence in books and movies all the time. Many screenwriters, playwrights, and novelists have benefitted from reading his manual. In so many ways, my writer’s journey is captured by the narrative of a hero’s journey—a call to go on a creative journey, fraught with many challenges and frustrations, and it continues to this day. As Vogler points out, the Hero’s Journey and the Writer’s Journey are the same. Aren’t we all the heroes of our own stories?