Peter the Great (Robert K Massie)
The definitive Peter the Great book, at least as far as I've read. Although it's a big book - 850 pages or so - it's always readable and (almost) always interesting. I admit I did start skipping pages when the author would start going into detail about Peter's various palaces or his wife's social life, but these were only a few pages. Probably more enjoyable if you know basically nothing about Peter the Great before starting (like I did) - the book is written for novices and gives a broad history of Russia as Peter found it, and the tension building up to the defining battle of Peter's reign at Poltava ends up nail-biting if you don't know what's going to happen. The downside is that Peter's later life after peace is made is a little less interesting, but by that point you're on the downslope and it's only about 200 pages before the book's over. Difficult to put down.
History Nerd Grade: A
Non-History Nerd Grade: B-
