The Red Flag- David Priestland The Russian Revolution – Pipes A People's Tragedy: The Russian Revolution: 1891-1924

None of these books are good introductions to the events of 1917. Both Figes and especially Pipes have deep methodological flaws and biases that really denude them of utility for a reader in 2018 trying to make sense of these events. This follow-up answer of mine explores some of the problems with A People's Tragedy while this recent answer of mine delves into Pipes's longstanding problems. Of the three listed, The Red Flag is arguably the more grounded book, but it is a general survey of communism's twentieth century. Priestland has some good cultural history there, but he is too focused on the USSR/Eastern Europe and The Red Flag glosses over key parts of communism's history.

There are though much better books out there on 1917. The best introduction for 1917 is Sheila Fitzpatrick's The Russian Revolution. Fitzpatrick was a pioneer in applying social history to the USSR and at the time of its publication, she pushed the timeframe of the revolution to the Stalin period. Rex Wade's The Russian Revolution is another text that is a good alternative to Fitzpatrick with a greater focus on contingency. Mark Steinberg's The Russian Revolution, 1905-1921 is another long chronological take on 1917. Steinberg did a good podcast interview with Sean's Russia Blog. For the revolution itself, Alexander Rabinowitch's Bolshevik trilogy (The Bolsheviks Come to Power: The Revolution of 1917 in Petrograd, Prelude to Revolution The Petrograd Bolsheviks and the July 1917 Uprising, and The Bolsheviks in Power: The First Year of Soviet Rule in Petrograd) are both historiographically important works on 1917 and quite accessible. The anthology Revolutionary Russia: New Approaches edited by Rex Wade is a way to get at the major historical analyses put forward by leading scholars in the field of Russian/Soviet history. If you want something a little out of left field, Time and Revolution: Marxism and the Design of Soviet Institutions by Stephen Hanson was one of the more interesting books on the Bolsheviks I've read that grapples with the fundamental question of how both Lenin and Stalin conceived of time.

For online sources, UIUC has a Russian history reading list for PhD students with a sizable section on Revolution. Peter Holquist and Benjamin Nathan also have a rather sizable list to punish their grad students foolish enough to want to take a qualifying exam in Russian history.