Where should a beginner start?

With Mythology by Edith Hamilton, the easiest book on this list at difficulty 21 out of 100: about 4.6 hours at an average pace. Then Theogony by Hesiod (44) and The Bacchae by Euripides (46).

What is the hardest book on the list?

Oresteia by Aeschylus, at 64 out of 100 and about 3.1 hours at an average pace. It comes last, after the books that prepare for it.

How long does the whole list take?

About 72 hours at an average pace of 250 words a minute. The three longest books take 31 hours of them: Iliad (11 hours), Metamorphoses (11 hours) and Odyssey (8.6 hours).

How is difficulty measured?

ReadingRate scores every book from 0 to 100 on how hard it is to read, from its prose and from what it asks of a reader. For a book of argument the score weighs how complex the argument is, what it assumes you already know, how opaque its terms are, how indirectly it makes its case and how much it tries to hold at once.

Greek mythology for beginners

Sixteen books of Greek myth, from the easiest to the hardest by ReadingRate’s difficulty score: from Edith Hamilton’s retellings to Aeschylus’s Oresteia.

16 books · 72 hours at an average pace · difficulty 21 to 64

Very easy

Mythology by Edith Hamilton (1942): difficulty 21 of 100, Very easy, about 4.6 hours. The Greek and Roman myths retold in one book, the gods first and then the heroes.

Moderate

Theogony by Hesiod (c. 700 BCE): difficulty 44 of 100, Moderate, about 38 min. How the gods were born and how Zeus came to rule them: the family tree behind the other myths.
The Bacchae by Euripides (c. 405 BCE): difficulty 46 of 100, Moderate, about 1.3 hours, free to read on ReadingRate. Dionysus comes home to Thebes in disguise, and the king who denies him pays for it.
Circe by Madeline Miller (2018): difficulty 46 of 100, Moderate, about 7.7 hours. The witch of the Odyssey tells her own life, from a Titan’s childhood to Odysseus on her island.
Heroides by Ovid (c. 15 BCE): difficulty 49 of 100, Moderate, about 3.6 hours. Letters from women of myth, among them Penelope, Dido and Medea, to the men who left them.
The Trojan Women by Euripides (c. 415 BCE): difficulty 51 of 100, Moderate, about 57 min. Hecuba, Andromache and Cassandra wait to be shipped off as slaves after Troy falls.
The Song of Achilles by Madeline Miller (2011): difficulty 52 of 100, Moderate, about 6.6 hours. The Trojan War told by Patroclus, Achilles’ companion and lover.
Medea by Euripides (c. 431 BCE): difficulty 52 of 100, Moderate, about 1.6 hours, free to read on ReadingRate. Jason leaves Medea for a princess, and her revenge goes further than anyone expects.

Challenging

Odyssey by Homer (c. 725 BCE): difficulty 56 of 100, Challenging, about 8.6 hours, free to read on ReadingRate. Ten years of trying to get home from Troy: the Cyclops, Circe, the Sirens and a house full of suitors.
Iliad by Homer (c. 750 BCE): difficulty 56 of 100, Challenging, about 11 hours, free to read on ReadingRate. A few weeks of the Trojan War and the anger of Achilles. Where Greek literature begins.
The Silence of the Girls by Pat Barker (2018): difficulty 56 of 100, Challenging, about 7 hours. Briseis, the captive Achilles and Agamemnon quarrel over, tells the Iliad from the Greek camp.
Prometheus Bound by Aeschylus (c. 430 BCE): difficulty 59 of 100, Challenging, about 47 min. The Titan who gave fire to humans, chained to a rock, refuses to bend to Zeus.
Metamorphoses by Ovid (c. 8 CE): difficulty 60 of 100, Challenging, about 11 hours, free to read on ReadingRate. About 250 myths of change in one long poem, and the source for most of the stories we know.
Oedipus Rex by Sophocles (c. 429 BCE): difficulty 61 of 100, Challenging, about 1.1 hours, free to read on ReadingRate. A king hunts the killer who brought plague on his city and finds himself.
The Penelopiad by Margaret Atwood (2005): difficulty 61 of 100, Challenging, about 2.5 hours. Penelope gives her side of the Odyssey from the underworld, with her hanged maids as a chorus.
Oresteia by Aeschylus (c. 458 BCE): difficulty 64 of 100, Challenging, about 3.1 hours. The summit: Agamemnon’s murder, his son’s revenge, and a trial that ends the chain of killing.

Questions

Where should a beginner start?: With Mythology by Edith Hamilton, the easiest book on this list at difficulty 21 out of 100: about 4.6 hours at an average pace. Then Theogony by Hesiod (44) and The Bacchae by Euripides (46).
What is the hardest book on the list?: Oresteia by Aeschylus, at 64 out of 100 and about 3.1 hours at an average pace. It comes last, after the books that prepare for it.
How long does the whole list take?: About 72 hours at an average pace of 250 words a minute. The three longest books take 31 hours of them: Iliad (11 hours), Metamorphoses (11 hours) and Odyssey (8.6 hours).
How is difficulty measured?: ReadingRate scores every book from 0 to 100 on how hard it is to read, from its prose and from what it asks of a reader. For a book of argument the score weighs how complex the argument is, what it assumes you already know, how opaque its terms are, how indirectly it makes its case and how much it tries to hold at once.

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