In reply to Si dH:
Another vote for George MacDonald Fraser, both his Flashman books and his autobiographical stuff.
If you want to read some of the stuff that history writers use as source materials, then the following are available in English translations and are worth a read. BUT - they are written for a different time and so they are not written as people would write history today.
Herodotus - the histories. A wonderful overview of recent history and of the world as it is today, but written when "today" was about 475 BC, and "recent history" was back to 600BC. Most excellent.
Josephus - the Jewish War. Written about 75 AD. One of the most attractive and repellant aspects of this book is Josephus himself. He is such a self-publicist and has such an obvious agenda to sell that you can see how it distorts his story. An interesting guy to read about, but I most definitely would not want to have spent any time near him, and certainly not rely on him.
The book of Judges and the book of Ruth in the Bible. If you get past the preaching, there are some fascinating insights into life in the Middle East round about the time of the Bronze Age Collapse and its aftermath. The only contemporary source of that time and place I am aware of that focusses on the life of ordinary folk and not just the great kings and high priests.
The journey of Marco Polo.
That should be enough to get you going