The book that really got me hooked was The rise and fall of the Third Reich, by William Shirer. He was a journalist in Berlin before WWII, and you can see the journalistic background shine through in his narrative. A lot of what I've read since then has been in trying to trace back the references he gives to how the events of WWII recapitulated older conflicts, which I then went and found references in which to learn about.

Barbara Tuchman is a delightful mostly medieval historian, and Mary Beard is a wonderful Roman historian. Both have a decidedly personal voice, which happened to click well with me; your milage may vary.

Someone else in the thread mentioned Simon Sebag Montefiore, and I've enjoyed most of what he's written. It feels a little less scholarly than some other popular historical sources, but that's just an informal impression from a tyro.

Lots of people enjoy Yuval Harari, but I do not enjoy him at all.