I've recently developed an interest in learning about history and various historical events and figures. But I question many of my sources when learning about such individuals and finding information that's both unbiased and accurate. I'm not an aspiring historian or anything, I'm just interested in learning about history and forming his own valid opinions on certain topics. So where do I start? Books? Documentaries? As I said I'm an amateur, I have no idea what I'm doing
So at AskHistorians, we have this amazing book list of recommendations from mods and flairs, divided by categories.
As to how reputable a history book is, a good thing to do is look at reviews--and specifically, reviews not on Amazon or Goodreads. An academic journal or history.ac.uk or H-Net is best, but (a) the first of those is often paywalled (b) that usually won't cover popular or crossover books. So a good review in something like the NY or London Review of Books, or the New Yorker, will usually be written by an expert in the field.
As a last ditch shorthand, you can look for things published by a university press or a small number of non-uni publishers (Boydell & Brewer, Routledge, Brepols...not that these are affordable).
Also, I highly recommend the BBC's In Our Time podcast. Every episode is a conversation/interview with three top scholars on the subject matter--no "infotainment" or "I'm just an entertainer" pretense here; these people know their shit and will tell you. :) (Also, every episode is free to download from the BBC website!)