Would love to get back into history / historical fiction type reads. Who are some lighter and less dense writers to check out? 

Found McCulloughs 1776 pretty good in this direction

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Have you read any of Mike Duncan's book? (Duncan did "The History of Rome" and "Revolutions" podcasts.)

I found "The Storm Before The Storm" both a quick read and really informative about a period of Roman history that doesn't get as much attention as the later empire.

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They're independent, though the book was written after the podcast ended. No "right" order to do them in.

"The History of Rome" podcast is good, but it is worth noting that it's OLD (the first episode is from 2007) and can sound a little rough to "modern" ears - a lot of "how to podcast" just hadn't been invented yet!