I'm in a history phase at the moment. I started by buying Peter Hennessy's Having It So Good. After reading the first chapter or so, I realised I was sort of starting in the middle--I needed to start back at 1945, not 1951. (I wasn't ignorant of the immediate postwar period, but I didn't know it in that depth.) So I went and got his previous book, Never Again. Both were excellent, a nice mix of economic, political and social history, and a much better level of detail than most popular history books which tend to either cover a larger place or period. It can be difficult to find books in that space--between grand-span popular and specialist academic text. Not that 300 pages on "British industrial policy in the 1950s" might not be edifying and even interesting, but if you did all your reading at that level, you'd have a near-infinite number of books and quite possibly learn nothing.
Unfortunately, I've now stopped at 1960, and need to find a good history of Britain for the next decade. :)
My current one is La Vie en Bleu: France and the French since 1900. An overview wasn't a bad idea, since I haven't read much French history since university, but the book is proving somewhat frustrating in some respects. It feels like it's trying to cover too much in too little space. This is an inherent difficulty with broad histories, but the more successful ones try to be selective about what they cover, sticking to what best supports their major themes rather than trying to be comprehensive. As a comparison, I found Tony Judt's Postwar to be very readable, despite covering a huge subject. More problems: the narrative isn't tight enough (too much jumping) and the author really makes it feel choppy by inserting little section headers every page or two. I don't find them necessary or helpful, just annoying. If you're prepared to read 700 pages on French history, surely you can cope with continuous text?
Next up: Andrew Roberts, A History of the English-Speaking Peoples Since 1900. Another grand sweep, but in this case, I'm interested to see what he does with the theme and how he ties together the threads of the English-speaking world.
Maybe I'll go back to novels next...