Little Dorrit by Charles Dickens

The theme of this Dickens novel is imprisonment, and many of the characters are in prisons, either of their own making or forced on them. As usual with Dickens, it is long, convoluted, full of coincidences and fortunate happenstance, but still satisfying.

A South Divided by David C. Downing

Now this is an excellent history book. Engaging, understandable, readable, interesting, and novel, while at the same time offering plenty of footnotes to document the claims and a neat bibliography. Highly recommended - it's a shame more history books are not written like this.