Catherine the Great: Portrait of a Woman

I greatly enjoyed this examination of the life of Princess Sophie, the German girl from the backwater who was whisked off to Russia to marry her cousin, and who deposed him and ruled for 34 years instead. The placement of the story in the context of wider European history is well done, the descriptions of court life are vivid; overall a good read. The single most amazing thing about this book, for me, was realizing how young Sophie/Catherine was when she began her life of court intrigue, in which she rarely put a foot wrong; I have children that age. A reminder, yet again, that the past is truly a foreign country.