I enjoy history for the drama and grandeur, but the primary motivating factor stems from a yearning to understand of the world. However, as I work in finance, I simply cannot turn every stone and peruse every primary source to grasp the nature of historical events. I must inevitably relinquish control, to some extent, to an author who curates a deeper knowledge.
I recently purchased a book that encapsulates this conflict. I listen to "The Rest is History" podcast, as it is the perfect type of light history for exercise or commuting. Both presenters also write books, and I decided to grab Tom Holland's book "Dominion" because the subject matter interested me. Something convinced me, after I bought it, to then see how my favorite subreddit r/AskHistorians viewed his work. I fell into a rabbit hole on historiography, and I truly believe I read every post on this work, and most posts on his other works to understand the criticism.
It pains me to say it was not favorable. This book is over 400 pages, and because I have no intention on becoming an expert on the Christian influence on modern sensibilities, it would inform my knowledge of that topic greatly, and therefore my views. Over the course of years, as I read a greater variety of sources on different topics, I may one day have the ability to refute with evidence, but that would be quite a slow moving shift.
I also found the subreddit's book list, but many of the best resources are dry, academic, non-narrative textbooks. I studied math in college, so I am accustomed to textbooks and academic papers, but I find history presented in a similar fashion much less engaging. So, I with all that, I actually have three questions.
I think it's entirely possible, but you need to change our expectations a little bit. To have a book that is entertainingly written and won't mislead you regarding the broad strokes of history (which is likely all you will remember if you're just reading it casually) is actually not so difficult. Though it's had unfavourable reviews, I'd list Tom Holland's Rubicon in this- it's the book that got me interested in Roman History, and some of the episodes it discussed became stepping-stones for more in-depth research I did during my history degrees.
On the side of popular history, I'll start by saying academics can be dry by acculturation. In a field that skews heavily elderly, and in which style is not really rewarded, you get a lot of people who either completely forego clarity or flow, or those who see stylistic complexity as a virtue in and of itself. I can't tell you how many presentations I've had to sit through, both by students and established scholars, that feature powerpoints with nothing but paragraphs of text and a speech that's read word-for-word off a printed out stack of papers.
To academia's defense, however, part of what makes their writing necessarily less exciting is that they really need to do their job. A lot of the "facts" we have about the past are interpretations of old pieces of text or objects that have been identified as belonging to certain times and places. All of this contains uncertainty- and this is compounded by the final layers of interpretation and narrative cohesion a historian tries to provide. A good historian will mention cases where uncertainty is higher, and discuss competing theories where one does not seem overwhelmingly likely. Each point of uncertainty, however, disrupts the web of narrative. If Sulla didn't march from here but from there, then did he pick up that legion on the way? If the observatory built outside Istanbul was actually for astrological purposes, was the movement that destroyed it still anti-intelelctual? All these uncertainties stilt the flow of a text, making it awkward to tell a cohesive story. If narrative is the priority, it's much better to just pick the most likely options that tie together into something that makes sense overall, and roll with it. The problem is, this is bad history- it glosses over findings, oversimplifies trends, ignores certain discussions, and sometimes suggests things that aren't there.
So long as you're willing to accept that the history you're getting is simplified, probably outdated, and perhaps even makes up a thing or two along the way, I'd say you're fine going for books that are easier to read- better to read something than nothing! Just double check with some independent research, though, if you find yourself wanting to share some interesting fact you read about at your next dinner party- it might be BS.