I was perusing the shelves in the travel section of one branch of the Tulsa Library the other day, and picked up a book called "A Day in the life of Ancient Rome" by Alberto Angela. I opened it to a random page, and was instantly enchanted.
This is a lovely book. I'm only about 1/3 of the way through, and I'm enjoying every minute, every page.
Angela starts us in a domus in Rome on a Tuesday in the year 115 a.d., and carries on throughout the day. But he doesn't limit his description to the upper class; no, we also visit an insula, a Roman apartment building, where the tenants (on the lower floors) are middle class, and the upper floors are decidedly lower class. There are also descriptions of the lives of slaves.
One of the things that I'm appreciating, is how the descriptions in the book match and plump out the things we have learned about Roman life in our travels. Just this year we visited an archeological site in Vaison-la-Romaine which matched almost to the square inch his description of the layout and function of the domus. He talks about mosaics, such as those we say in the Roman villa in Sicily, and theaters and amphitheaters, as we saw in Rome and Orange.
It's definitely "accessible," but doesn't talk down to its readers. Very entertaining, very informative, and I recommend it highly.