Trying to escape? Try these books.

Set during the 1930s, this minutely detailed, engrossing saga chronicles a family as they search for a husband for the shy third sister, Yukiko. The traditions and etiquette that govern them are at once comforting and anxiety-provoking; what the sisters can’t see is that the genteel society they were raised in doesn’t really exist anymore.

“All-Bright Court,” by Connie Porter (1987)

In vivid, short-story-like chapters, this compassionate, clear-eyed novel covers 20 years in the lives of a Black family that has moved north, drawn by the promise of work in the Buffalo steel mills.

“Eleanor Roosevelt,” by Blanche Wiesen Cook (1992-2016)

A beautifully written three-volume biography of perhaps our greatest unelected public servant, who both during and after her time as first lady advocated for civil rights in America and around the world.

“They Were Counted,” “They Were Found Wanting,” “They Were Divided,” by Miklós Bánffy (1934–1940)

Another they-couldn’t-see-that-the-old-world-order-was-collapsing-all-around-them family saga (for some reason this genre seems especially compelling and poignant right now). Set in Transylvania before World War I, the trilogy is rich in political and romantic intrigue, family conflict, and achingly evocative descriptions of nature.

“Murder Must Advertise,” by Dorothy Sayers (1933)

Because sometimes a Golden Age mystery is the only thing that will do. This one is set at an ad agency and features Sayers’s aristocratic amateur sleuth, the apparently foppish but really deeply humane Lord Peter Wimsey, who solves mysteries with enviable intelligence, ethical integrity, and a fine sensitivity to moral complexity and nuance. He also has a nimble sense of humor and a terrific wardrobe.

“The Paper Garden,” by Molly Peacock (2010)

Mary Delany (1700–1788) married twice, was a friend of George Frideric Handel and Jonathan Swift, and, at the age of 72, began a career as an artist, creating a series of nearly a thousand cut-paper flower collages, stunning in their botanical accuracy and visual impact. Poet Molly Peacock’s biography of Delany is sympathetic, lively, and lusciously illustrated with examples of Delany’s work.

“Balm in Gilead,” by Sara Lawrence-Lightfoot (1988)

A classic of American biography. Dr. Margaret Lawrence grew up as the daughter of a minister in Mississippi, went to Cornell University at a time when Black students were not allowed to live in the dormitories (she lived with a family and worked as their maid), earned her medical degree at Columbia University, and went on to become a distinguished child psychiatrist.

In this intimate, honest narrative, sociologist and storyteller Sara Lawrence-Lightfoot not only records the life of her mother but also seems to inhabit her consciousness.

“The Years of Lyndon Johnson,” volumes 1-4 (1982–2012), by Robert Caro

There’s a lot to say about Lyndon Johnson, and Robert Caro says it all, magnificently. This is history as literature. Caro shows you where Johnson comes from with a treatise on the grass that grows, or doesn’t grow, in the Texas Hill Country. He spends 34 pages on the meaning of a handshake between LBJ and JFK. You could pick up any volume and become engrossed. But one good place to start is with the third installment, subtitled “Master of the Senate,” which begins with a history of how that body has worked, and sometimes ceased to work, since the nation’s founding.

“Time Will Darken It,” by William Maxwell (1948)

Set in a small town in Illinois at the turn of the last century, this quiet, piercing novel is made up of small moments of understanding and misunderstanding. It is a profound exploration of memory and love, and there’s not one word that doesn’t need to be there.

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Joan Wickersham’s latest book is, “No Ship Sets Out To Be A Shipwreck.” Her column appears regularly in the Globe.