Some interesting titbits from here: https://www.theguardian.com/books/2015/aug/17/the-100-best-novels-written-in-english-the-full-list

Here’s a few that caught OutinPaperback.com’s eye:

“Sybil by Benjamin Disraeli (1845)
The future prime minister displayed flashes of brilliance that equalled the greatest Victorian novelists.”

“The Way We Live Now by Anthony Trollope (1875)
Inspired by the author’s fury at the corrupt state of England, and dismissed by critics at the time, The Way We Live Now is recognised as Trollope’s masterpiece.”

“Jude the Obscure by Thomas Hardy (1895)
Hardy exposed his deepest feelings in this bleak, angry novel and, stung by the hostile response, he never wrote another.”

“The Golden Bowl by Henry James (1904)
American literature contains nothing else quite like Henry James’s amazing, labyrinthine and claustrophobic novel.”

“Gentlemen Prefer Blondes by Anita Loos (1925)
A guilty pleasure it may be, but it is impossible to overlook the enduring influence of a tale that helped to define the jazz age.”

“Murphy by Samuel Beckett (1938)
Samuel Beckett’s first published novel is an absurdist masterpiece, a showcase for his uniquely comic voice.”

“Disgrace by JM Coetzee (1999)
In his Booker-winning masterpiece, Coetzee’s intensely human vision infuses a fictional world that both invites and confounds political interpretation.”

“True History of the Kelly Gang by Peter Carey (2000)
Peter Carey rounds off our list of literary milestones with a Booker prize-winning tour-de-force examining the life and times of Australia’s infamous antihero, Ned Kelly.”

Well, there’s a non-fiction book about a mysterious area of West Virginia on this. But it’s worth thinking what you are harking back to.

It’s call the Quiet Zone by Stephen Kurczy – Unraveling the Mystery of a Town Suspended in Silence.

As the latest review in the NY Times describes it:

“Wi-Fi, cellphones and even some electric blankets are banned in a government-mandated area around Green Bank, W.Va. The secluded town is home to the world’s largest steerable telescope, legally protected since 1958. In theory, the 13,000 square miles surrounding the telescope are supposed to be free of any radio intereference. In practice, Kurczy discovered, nearly everyone finds a way around this obstacle.”

Yet “according to him, the claim in the Times article that Green Bank was a place “where Wi-Fi is both unavailable and banned and where cellphone signals are nonexistent” was “news to everyone around Green Bank….Local officials pretend to enforce laws they know almost everyone breaks. But once they arrive, it’s clear their issues are personal rather than technological.”

“Whether it’s an escape from social media, electromagnetic waves or people of color, they are never at ease because their torment comes from inside them — the one place they’re unwilling to look…..

Check out the book here