Citizens of London by Lynne Olson

Citizens of London is one of the most enjoyable history books that I've read in years. As with the best novels, finishing the book left me feeling like a best friend was moving away. In addition to Olson's fluid writing style, the book benefited greatly from her ability to at once treat every figure in the book honestly and critically while still showing them in as reverent a light as more hagiographic accounts of their lives. In fact, her acceptance of people like Churchill, Harriman, Winant and Murrow as fully human, with all of the flaws that go with it, makes them seem somehow more admirable than they do in depictions that scrub them of their shortcomings.