I want to get into literature and start reading more, but I keep getting filtered by having no knowledge in history (or anything else.) The older the book the worse this gets, especially since a lot of them reference and discuss historical events casually as if they were common knowledge.
How do I compensate for this? Or more aptly, which is the best way to learn history in order to read books? Looking up any one concept spirals into 20 more which themselves spiral into many more each, there has to be a better and more streamlined way to learn more. Basically, are there any good historical resources that cover things most authors expect you to know? Are there resources for anything the reader is supposed to know outside of history like scientific concepts or mathematics or anything?
Please assume I am a brainlet. Anything at all helps, even highschool (or even junior high) tier resources would be useful. I don't have any formal education so my baseline here is zero.
If it helps, the literature I intend to read is basically just all of the classics around the world, both fiction and philosophy.