One of the world's most notable biographers creates a grand portrait of a great monarch. This Russian-born French biographer of Tolstoy, Chekhov, Turgenev, Pushkin, Dostoevsky, and Gogol weaves a rich tapestry of history that reads like a novel. Seizing power from her husband and second cousin Peter III, Catherine fights and beats the Turks, defeats rebellion, partitions Poland, raises the prestige of Russia in Europe by corresponding with French philosophers and buying western art, and brings vast new lands under her 34-year reign.  (RUS10, $18.00)