The Year 1000 (Robert Lacey & Danny Danziger, 1999)

Subtitled: 'What life was like at the turn of the first millennium', The Year 1000 is a readable romp through the calendar from January to December, charting the life and times of people 1000 years ago. The authors draw on a wide range of sources and cover things like farming, the position of women, religion, royalty, wars, medicine, food... barely a subject left untouched, and at 200 pages it's not over-full with facts and information, but I found there was just enough to keep me turning the pages and interested in the subjects. 

I've never really considered what life must have been like for people before the Battle of Hastings in 1066, when most English history seems to begin. Lacey and Danziger explain who was in charge before that time, and what led up and from the famous battle, but they also step away from the bigger picture events to focus on the generalities of daily life, like the good diets people had, the relative lack of diseases from later years when populations crowded into cities, the roots of festivals both religious/Christian and pagan that still exist in some form today... It's a fascinating trip, written with good humour and a journalistic readability.