The Shadow of the Winter Palace: Russia's Drift Toward Revolution 1825-1917 by Edward Crankshaw

Pretty much what it says on the tin.

I'm a bit ambivalent – it's quite readable (and appropriately painful in places) – but there was also a shocking lack of primary sources. And you can't tell me raging egoists like the Romanovs didn't write letters and diaries, because I'll call you a liar. I might more easily believe a lot of it didn't survive, but this book was a lot more 'an entire century compressed and themed and fabricated into inevitable-feeling order' than I like in my history, and that's partly for a lack of voices other than the historian's.

Through Wolf's Eyes, and Wolf's Head, Wolf's Heart by Jane Lindskold

Heh, okay, so before starting, I knew this series was about a young girl who was raised by magical wolves, and what happens when she is returned to her native stock fantasy kingdom whose long-lost princess she might be. But I think because I saw cmshaw reading them in enormous, imposing hardcovers, I didn't quite realize these books are about a girl raised by magical wolves who might be a long-lost princess. Oh, and also, she can speak to animals.

Heh. Heh heh. Extremely but unintentionally hilarious, with occasional stretches of deep dullness ("intricate political maneuverings," I'm looking at you). Occasionally spiced with a genuinely interesting subplot about how being raised by wolves leaves you a lot more well-equipped to deal with the sexuality of, you know, wolves, rather than humans.

The sort of thing you'll not entirely admit to liking, if you tend not to admit liking that sort of thing.