I am currently reading Cicero : The Life and Times of Rome's Greatest Politician by Anthony Everitt. Everitt writes well, makes good use of evidence and sources, and straddles the line between scholarship and popular history writing without selling out or dumbing down. He might have included a bit more on historiography, extant sources (and what that means for understanding anything in the classical world) and the meaning of Cicero, especially for Enlightenment thinkers and--drum roll--the Founding Fathers. Still it's a great book and I am encouraged that it sold so well.