Summer is generally a good time to catch up on reading, so if you find yourself looking for a short ancient/classical history book to read, here are a few suggestions from my book reviews.

The first is Always I Am Caesar, by Jeffrey Tatum. A barista at a local art college coffee shop saw me reading this book (for the second time), plowing through it and totally absorbed. She asked what it was about and then asked to borrow it. I don't know her background, but she reported back two weeks later that although she hasn't had time to read very much, she was surprised by how easy to understand it actually was. She also said she could understand why I so thoroughly enjoyed it. Not exactly a ringing endorsement, but positive.
Tatum has something on Julius Caesar for everyone, from a refresher on the social and political structure of Republican Rome, to a new slant on the significance of Caesar's famous dying words, to a comparison between Caesar and notable modern leaders. Since the material is taken from public lectures, the prose flows like that of engaging modern professor or storyteller.

The next three I probably would not lend to a barista without some sort of background in Classics, Archaeology, or Ancient History. First there is Greek Tragedy, by Nancy Sorkin Rabinowitz. Like the book on Caesar, this is on a topic near and dear to me. Also like Always I Am Caesar, this is written by someone who knows how to hold the attention of people listening in a classroom setting, and, even more important, knows how to convey that to paper.
Rabinowitz' Greek Tragedy is like a modern, lecture-based course on Greek Tragedy, but in book form. As a supplement to a college course on the topic or for someone who has already studied Greek tragedy, yet wants a look at modern scholarship and perspectives, Greek Tragedy is a vein of gold. It is particularly useful for those intrigued with feminist and structuralist perspectives.

The next two books are for people who are especially interested in their topics, Cleopatra, and Magic:
Cleopatra and Egypt, by Sally-Ann Ashton, is a must-read, scholarly book on Cleopatra for students and teachers of ancient Egypt, Cleopatra, and ancient art. Also suitable, perhaps, for non-academics who want the latest research on Cleopatra and her family, the Ptolemies. While Cleopatra and Egypt covers pretty much all we know about Cleopatra VII, it is not written as an introduction to the subject.
Magic in the Ancient Greek World
If you're deeply interested in how magic was used in ancient Greece, you should read Derek Collins' Magic in the Ancient Greek World. If you want to know more about curse tablets/binding magic, anti-magical legislation in the Greco-Roman world, or a bit about the anthropology of magic, you should read the relevant chapters.

I'd also like to throw out one fiction suggestion. I've just finished re-reading (yes, it was good enough for a second go-round a year later) Ruth Downie's first historical fiction featuring a sleuth in Hadrian's Britain, Medicus (2007). Her second and third are in the process of being published in select parts of the anglophone world. Ruth Downie's appealing army-doctor sleuth, Ruso, joins a field popularized by Lindsey Davis' Falco.