I've always "read" history. Ever since I was a kid. I'd bounce between fiction and non-fiction with every book, but as I continue to read history I realize that it's becoming less satisfying, that I've amassed a large amount of facts, but little understanding of history. I've started to narrow down my somewhat scattered readings (a history of North Korea, the Black Death, and a biography of Ben Franklin sum up what I've read in the past month) into a listing of the periods and places that truly fascinate me. I've started to dig deeper into each individual work, highlighting things for further investigation and taking note of other works the author cites to add to my ever expanding reading list, but I feel as though there's more I can be and should be doing.
Do you have any recommendations for someone who wants to learn the historian's craft without the resources of a school? I took some history courses in college, so I'm not completely a babe in the wilderness, but I feel as though I should have done more to expand my historiographical toolkit while I had the opportunity. I've noted the historiography section on the reading list and have already requested several of the books from my library, but I'd like to know if there's more I can do.
My first suggestion is start close to home. Most of the 'work' of the historian is going to be collecting evidence. You can do this by combing through primary sources from a thousand years ago. You can also do it by finding out when your home was built. When the town was founded. What was the origin of the street name your house is on? Who were your grand parents? Who was the designer of the library you go to? These are all questions the skills of a historian might answer, and simple enough that you can learn how to answer them in the process of finding that answer.
A good place to start is to pick up a book on historiography. There are a bunch of them on Amazon. Get one that covers history in general. After you learn the basic methodologies from that, pick up a historiography book on whatever topic you're interested in and learn the various interpretations.
The thing schools give you are time and mentors. There's no magical trick that you can only learn there. The more you read, think, and research, the better you will become. It has a lot to do with personal experience. Try digging through primary sources at your local genealogy room at your library or online for practice.
Remember to always ask questions. Who is writing X and what biases might they have? Are they jumping to conclusions? Basing their research on flawed sources? Pushing an agenda? What influence could the writer's time period have had on their writing, etc.
I think a good step to take would be to note particular academic disagreements within the specific periods or subjects you read about. Make sure to acquire works by Historians who disagree with each other and attain an understanding of how/why their positions differ.
You could join the American Historical Association and get a subscription to the American Historical Review, one of the leading academic history journals in the country. There you can read the very latest in historical research via journal articles. Articles are relatively quicker to write and publish than whole books so oftentimes scholars use articles to test out new ideas. The AHR is also useful for its vast book review section where you can get a taste of all the latest books out in different areas of history.
If you are interested in a particular region or discipline in history, you can also join or get a subscription to journals with a more focused research agenda. There are journals specializing in Latin American Studies, Early Modern Europe, Atlantic World, Civil War, Wild West, Asian Studies, African Studies, etc.
Occasionally journals publish what's called "historiographical essays" in which the author does kind of a "mega-review" of recent books on a particular topic or theme and relates them to previous historiography.
The best but perhaps most expensive thing to do is somehow get a JSTOR subscription so you can search through archives of many, many academic journals. JSTOR subscriptions are usually done through institutions because they are so expensive but there may be one for individuals.
Do any of the areas you study have active associations or organizations devoted to their study? There's a good chance that if they do those organizations put out journals and newsletters and even if the journal subscriptions are pricey the newsletters are often free or cheaper and are if not a substitute for deep reading a reasonably good way to keep informed about goings-on, projects, recent publications, and so on.