The Ancient Athenian Plays
Mine · Greece
Any of the Athenian tragedies can be read in a few hours. Oedipus Rex by Sophocles is absolute dynamite. Try to do it in one go, without distraction. We all know what is coming, and have done for a very long time, but it's still incredibly compelling. Antigone about Oedipus’ Daughter/half sister is also brilliant, though not as well known. The Oresteia by Aeschylus is a trilogy of tragedies, a weekend of reading and best read consecutively and uninterrupted.
All the Athenian tragedies are mental, very interesting and very good reads. They allow you to step into the minds, morality and worldview of a completely alien culture. The classics remain classics because they still resonate with us, but they are also worth reading for how deeply strange they are: they allow us to step into a wholly alien, outrageous but complete civililsation.
We get something similar from Homer's depiction of Achilles treatment of Hectors corpse, or Odysseus and the Suitors, but that feels less disconcerting because at that time the Greeks were savage. But Athens is the fount of western civ. It seems so wrong, at first, that they were so different to us. The core value of the tragedies is that by reading them carefully (and you really should try at least one from each of Sophocles, Aeschylus and Euripides) we can begin to actually understand.