Books with a sense of time and place

I was coming on to suggest this.

Lanark: A Life in Four Books by Alasdair Gray is very evocative of Glasgow.
His Dark Materials by Philip Pullman - Oxford
Dracula by Bram Stoker - Whitby

Kate Atkinson's latest, Shrines of Gaiety is terrific. Also Sarah Waters, The Night Watch.

The Snow Child by Eowyn Ivey (rural Alaska.... 1800s from memory)

Still Life by Sarah Winman, a real saga spanning much of 20th Century in London and Florence.

Atonement

Another vote for the Shardlake series .

I also loved Memoirs of A Geisha ( set in Japan before and during WW 2 ) and The Glass Palace by Amitav Ghosh , a historical novel featuring Burma, Malaya and India.

I loved the Last Rose of Shanghai by Weina dai randel. Really conjures up place and era.

Restoration by Rose Tremain, set in the reign of Charles II.

The Shardlake series by C J Sansom.
A lawyer in Henry VIII times investigates various crimes. I thought these had a memorable sense of place and time. I don't usually read historical fiction - these got me really interested in the time period.
The first one is set around the dissolution of the monasteries. Later ones move to London and York.
www.amazon.co.uk/Dissolution-Shardlake-C-J-Sansom/dp/1447285832/ref=monarch_sidesheet

A stunning book. I remember the master gardener and how the pond was laid out.so ingeniouly that the sky seemed part of the garden and the slow flap of the heron's wings overhead. The natural world is a refuge from the cruel horrors of wartime and so beautifully described that it is haunting.

Hamnet is brilliant. I’d also recommend Instructions for a Heatwave by Maggie O’Farrell - it’s set in London in the 1976 heatwave.

Miss Smilla’s Feeling for Snow by Peter Hoeg is very good, and very evocative - set mainly in Greenland.

The Snow Child by Eowyn Ivey is great for the vast expanse of Alaska

Hamnet had me able to picture every bit of that house, the woods - very evocative.

Agree with the Steff Penney recommendation.

Slow Horses by Mick Herron - you definitely get a sense of the sleazy, run down filth they work in, I could almost feel my shoes on the sticky carpet.

Still Life evokes Florence beautifully. I knew nothing about the floods there so that was fascinating, and I enjoyed the art references too, as well as it being a very readable story with interesting characters.

Year of Wonders by Geraldine Brooks, set in the village of Eyam in Derbyshire and based on true events .. the vicar persuaded the inhabitants to isolate themselves to prevent the plague spreading and GB tells their stories.

Snow Flower and the Secret Fan by Lisa See. The story of the friendship between Lily and Snow Flower who are laotongs - friends with a special bond - in early 19th century China. I now know more about the barbaric process of foot binding than I ever wanted to, but there's much more to the book than that.

I can't be doing with navel-gazing books set in suburban London focusing on middle-class people and their relationships. Or pink shoes in the cupcake bakery in Cornish village sort of stuff. I'm with you OP. I really enjoy being transported to a different country, culture or time period. And I like a good straightforward narrative with no jumping about, hidden letters from a grandparent .. and no present tense!

I'm working my way through Alison Weir's Six Wives series and have just finished Anne Boleyn's story. Really absorbing and gives a different slant on her life. I'd also recommend the Shardlake Tudor crime series by CJ Sansom. And I love books set in the first half of the 20th century, often around WW2. LIssa Evans is worth a look.

The Ashes of London series by Andrew Taylor - Fire of London era crime

The Shadow of the Wind by Carlos Ruiz Zafon was great for this.

The Go-between by Hartley. Very evocative of a bygone time.

If you're willing to contemplate science fiction, and a time/place that never really existed, The City and The City by China Miéville would fit your description, and it's a brilliant book with a real sense of place. It's about a police officer trying to solve a murder in a twin city — where two different cities occupy the same place at the same time.

Definitely Wolf Hall

If you like crime fiction as well, perhaps try Val McDermid’s new series about a reporter: they’re based in the UK (although in the second one she travels to Berlin). The first one’s called 1979 and the second one is 1989, so that gives you a clear clue to the time period 😂 I like them because of my age - I can remember all the cultural and political issues she describes (the second one touches on the horrific stigmatising of AIDS patients in the early years of the disease).

I was going to suggest this. I loved this book.
I'm another Michelle Paver fan.
Being more traditional I used to love getting lost in a good Cathetine Cookson.

Her novel The Secret of Perfection, set in contemporary times, is also brilliant on smalltown Australia and the outback.

The Garden of Evening Mists by Tan Twan Eng. Just lovely. Shortlisted for Booker 2012.

Secret River by Kate Grenville would be my recommendation. Set in Australia and tells the story of a British prisoner transported there with his family and how they try to settle. Really evocative.

Dorothy L Sayers Murder Must Advertise.

London in the 1920s

Dorothy Dunnett Lymond books. Tudor England

Try Pat Barker?