The Guns of August / Barbara Tuchman, 606 pp.

It's easy to see why this 1962 work, outlining the first month of WWI, is still so popular.  Although the prevailing image of that war is of long, static years in the trenches, Tuchman lays out the action-packed beginning of the conflict and the circumstances which led to the later stalemate.

Told from the point of view of the politicians and generals who directed the action, this is amazingly suspenseful stuff.  I love Tuchman's flair with language:

Joffre arrived early at Laon...to lend him sangfroid out of his own bottomless supply...

With their relentless talent for the tactless, the Germans chose to violate Luxembourg at a place whose...name was Trois Vierges (three virgins)...


Rennenkampf...could not, fling himself after the fleeing enemy to pluck the final victory...

And if Tuchman makes frequent use of received cliches about the national characteristics of the various players - the Germans are rigid and brutal, the French passionate and prone to bursting into tears, the Russians sloppy and powerful, and the English self-interested and perfidious- she balances this out with an immense amount of detail about each of the many actors in this drama so that the effect is lively and (almost) fun.