empire

• the romanovs: autocrats of all the russias - w bruce lincoln and romanovs - simon sebag montefiore - i recommend a book that covers all the romanovs/emperors before going in depth on specific rulers to get a better concept of the timeline of russian history and how each era influenced the next. The SSB is easier to read but the lincoln is more polished.
• russia: 1000 year history of the wild east - martin sixsmith - a good general history, but it breezes through most of russian history and focuses mostly on the revolution/soviet era.
• ivan the terrible - henri troyat
• st petersburg - jonathan miles
• peter the great - robert k massie
• catherine and potemkin - simon sebag montefiore - anything SSB is a good read!
• russia against napoleon - dominic lieven
• crimea - orlando figes
• nicholas and alexandra - robert k massie
• the house of the dead: siberian exile under the tsars - daniel beer
• red fortress - catherine merridale - a history of the moscow kremlin

soviet

• a people's tragedy: the russian revolution - orlando figes - a good, not too long primer on the russian revolution to get to know the major players, events, and context in russia at the time.
• young stalin - simon sebag montefiore
• russia in flames - laura engelstein
• the empire must die: revolutionary russia - mikhail zygar
• ivan's war: russia in wwii - catherine merridale
• stalin: inside the court of the red tsar - simon sebag montefiore
• red plenty: inside the 50's soviet union - francis spufford
• red famine: stalin's war in ukraine - anne applebaum

current

• empires apart: a history of american and russian imperialism - brian landern
• oligarchs: wealth and power in the new russia - david hoffman

(most modern books about russia/putin are rubbish tbh)

cultural/general

• natasha's dance: a cultural history of russia - orlando figes
• land of the firebird - suzanne massie
• pavlovsk: life of a castle - suzanne massie
• russian magic tales from pushkin to platonov (penguin classic book)
• master and margarita - mikhail bulgakov (novel)
• the bronze horseman - alexander puskhin (poem)
• the zhivago affair - peter finn
• bolshoi confidential - simon morrison history of russian ballet
• the gates of europe - serhii plokhy - a history of ukraine
• russians: the people behind the power - gregory feifer