Setting as refuge

I have trouble focusing on reading in the dark part of the year. That's possibly why I tend to do more painting in the winter.

I am currently re-reading old comfort books -- right now, mysteries that aren't themselves scintillating qua mysteries, but which have rich, textured settings -- ones you want to walk around in. The characters are pretty stock, but really that makes them also part of the setting. (Also, they are the stock characters of another era, which gives them a kind of patina, like figurines taken from a drawer.) All mis-en-scene, all the time.

There's no doubt something extra escapist about this, given the givens; like one of those little street scenes or interiors built into the space on a bookshelf, a place to crawl into and, if not hide, peer out from.

What are your favorite books for a richly imagined, lived-in setting? Any genre welcome, including nonfiction. For example, Pamela Dean's Tam Lin is all about the setting.

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