Books like The Time of the Angels by Iris Murdoch

Alice, a curious girl, follows a rabbit into Wonderland and the Looking‑Glass world, meeting eccentric characters like the Mad Hatter and the Queen of Hearts in Lewis Carroll’s celebrated children’s fantasy.

Candide: A Tale of Conviviality and Optimism in a Wretched World

Stephen Dedalus’s coming‑of‑age journey in Dublin frames his transformation from bullied youth to aspiring artist, as he distances himself from conventional life.

John Bunyan’s classic allegory follows the spiritual journey of Christian, who overcomes trials such as the Valley of the Shadow of Death and Vanity Fair to reach Beulah Land.

Set during the French Indochina War, the novel follows British journalist Thomas Fowler, his mistress Phuong, and American idealist Pyle, whose ambitions and tragic fate reshape their lives amid political turmoil.

A Victorian love drama that examines gender, sexuality, and the shifting social roles of women in 19th‑century England.

A charismatic teacher at Edinburgh’s Marcia Blaine School in the years before World War II shapes the lives of six chosen girls, leaving an indelible mix of inspiration and manipulation that echoes into their adulthood.

In Thomas Hardy’s early Victorian tale, Lady Constantine defies decorum by falling for the youthful astronomer Swithin St. Cleeve, an affair that unfolds above an observatory tower and pits passion against societal expectations.

Barchester Towers, the second novel of Anthony Trollope’s Barsetshire series, follows the clash of ambition, love and clerical politics in the cathedral city of Barchester.

From Kay Redfield Jamison - an international authority on manic-depressive illness, and one of the few women who are full professors of medicine at American universities - a remarkable personal testimony: the revelation of her own struggle since adolescence with manic-depression, and how it has shaped her life. Vividly, directly, with candor, wit, and simplicity, she takes us into the fascinating and dangerous territory of this form of madness - a world in which one pole can be the alluring dark land ruled by what Byron called the "melancholy star of the imagination," and the other a desert of depression and, all too frequently, death. A moving and exhilarating memoir by a woman whose furious determination to learn the enemy, to use her gifts of intellect to make a difference, led her to become, by the time she was forty, a world authority on manic-depression, and whose work has helped save countless lives.

A diverse community gathers outside Imber Abbey, where an ancient bell symbolizes religion and mystery, drawing questions of faith, love, and forgiveness into the lives of its members.

A half‑Jewish Catholic English woman’s bold decision to cross from Israel into Jordan triggers a series of strange events.

A spirited 18‑year‑old London pickpocket is whisked back to the 19th‑century, where an Earl wagers to turn her into a lady and win her heart.

Michael Stone, a former celebrated author politics, seeks a fresh start in the English village of Silverbridge after prison, where a kindly vicar and his community help him, and his own healing story unfolds amid rural life.

A heart‑warming Christmas romance where Roman Hunter and Hannah Bradshaw reunite in their Georgia hometown after a seven‑year separation caused by lies, bringing hope and miracles to a small town.

During the 1918 influenza outbreak, a young Jewish girl in Boston, separated from her sisters, is cared for by an old German man and guided by visions of angels as she fights illness and seeks reunion.