25 Books to Read This December

Don't let its size fool you: There's never been a more inviting 700-plus-page historical tome. That's because the author, who matches rigorous scholarship with a novelist's eye for delicious details, is clearly having so much fun. And why not? In three centuries, the Romanovs produced titans and weaklings, war and peace, and enough salacious behavior to make us say, "Turn off thy Kardashians! Pick up thy Montefiore!"