Reddit reviews Napoleon's Master: A Life of Prince Talleyrand

If he likes history and finesse, I'd recommend Napoleon's Master: A Life of Prince Talleyrand.

I'm particularly interested in negotiation and diplomatic strategy, and this read was both what I expected and what I love. Talleyrand was arguably the greatest foreign affairs minister in Europe, having to deal with the difficulties of peace treaties while serving under one of the biggest warmongers Europe ever knew: Napoleon.

It's an amazing read, really, and it's full of little power levers, witty retorts and, of course, a lovely sense of grandeur. You mentioned in another comment that your grandpa is a devout christian. Well, to make things better, Talleyrand was an archbishop at some point in his life, before going back to secular life for less than pure reasons ;)

If anything, he's regarded as one of the masterminds of diplomacy and negotiation. This man once convinced with a single sentence all the great leaders of Europe, emperors and kings, gathered in a single room, who went out of their way to kick Napoleon's ass, to drop the idea of humiliating and dismantling France in a situation where no one was able to protect her anymore.

Ironically, I had to read the work of an English man to learn that much about that fellow Frenchman.