The Histories
The "Father of History," and of travel writing, ethnography, and narrative nonfiction. Herodotus ranged across the known world to explain the Persian Wars, collecting stories and customs and marvels along the way with insatiable curiosity. His method (go there, talk to people, write it down) is the foundation of journalism.
The length plus the digression is the complaint, the Egypt sections singled out as a detour that runs far past its welcome, one reader calling the whole thing “a monster Wikipedia rabbit hole, with some pointless anecdotes.” People log multi-week slogs and describe finishing as willed rather than pleasurable: “it took some serious motivation to get it done.” The credibility grates: gold-digging ants and folk tales reported without clearly separating what he saw from what he was told. And which translation to start with, de Selincourt or Holland or the annotated Landmark, is a live decision readers keep relitigating before they even begin.
The case for it and the rest of the canon open with Pro.
