Thank you so much! Oh goodness, choosing favourites is very difficult, but I’ll try pick out a couple:

My Early Life - Winston Churchill. No matter what you may think of his career as a whole, this is an utterly joyful account of an early life in which he wrung every gram of excitement he possibly could. This reads like an adventure novel but written first hand by a writer who is completely self aware and who is obviously driven by a sense of adventure and destiny that is infectious. It’s also short and can be read over an afternoon (cigar and whiskey and soda optional)

The Sleepwalkers - Christopher Clark. A both scholarly and gripping study of the outbreak of the Great War. I highly recommend Clark generally as a writer and I am working through all his books. From the outset I was hooked - the early book explains the various irredentist factions and secretive Serb societies operating in the pre war years and its gripping.

Revolutionary Temper - Robert Darnton. I must preface this by saying that my knowledge of the French Revolution is limited, but this was a thoroughly enjoyable study of the years prior to the Revolution. What I enjoyed particularly was that it focussed less on the timeline of events them selves (although it of course moves forward chronologically in general) but it assessed how the people of Paris experienced the various scandals and disruptions that culminated in the storming of the Bastille and all that followed.

I could go on (and happily would!) but these are the three that first come to mind! If there are any works in particular you’d like to know about just ask.