Jay - keeping in American History vein, just finished:
The American People in the Great Depression: Freedom from Fear, Part One (The Oxford History of the United States, V. 9)
I'm a stickler for strong prose writing (which is why I can't really read fiction anymore) - and this book delivers. Kennedy's fantastic - elegant, masterful writing. He marries the American perspective with a global one, lucidly synthesizing varying elements (politics, economics, cultural) to give the reader a cohesive, overall understanding of the era. FWIW, this book is also on the "generals" reading list for the history Phd program at Harvard.
-Al