"The Prize" is fantastic, as is the associated (7 hour!) PBS-produced documentary that's available in its entirety on youtube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n1stQW6i1Ko The actual in-person interviews with oil execs who were in the room during nationalization are amazing!
Another good one that I got recently is Arabia Felix [1], a rather obscure Danish book from 1962 from NYRB. A minor classic.
I'm not a war buff by any stretch, but I can recommend Antony Beevor. Sometimes his books devolve into exhausting, never-ending play-by-plays of tank and troop movements, but both Stalingrad and The Fall of Berlin [3] and were fascinating just for his ability to conjure up the time and place. Inside the Third Reich was similarly interesting, even it's known to be a flawed narrative.
I also recently read Bad Blood, about Theranos, which was excellent. Literary-wise not quite on the same level, though.
