I'm looking for beginner friendly books on Advaita Vedanta, especially with instructions on how to achieve union, and Hindu history especially as it relates to Advaita. Stuff that places it in it's historical context and is friendly to the modern american mind. Not needlessly dogmatic. Hope I'm not asking too much. I have a couple books by Shankara and intend to get them all at some point but he is not at all friendly to my modern american mind... surely I'm not the only one to have this problem. Any help would be greatly appreciated. I'm really thinking this could be the path for me I just need some help getting started.