I am interested in period fiction or well written historical texts.

A History of Private Life (Volume IV): From the Fires of Revolution to the Great War by Philippe Ariés and Georges Duby (general editors.)

What Jane Austen Ate and Charles Dickens Knew: From Fox Hunting to Whist - the Facts of Daily Life in 19th-Century England by Daniel Pool

The Writer's Guide to Everyday Life in the 1800s by Marc McCutcheon

Here are some book results that came up on a search amongst the shelves of the local library, which look helpful and have been favorably reviewed:

Schnitzler's Century: The Making of Middle-Class Culture 1815-1914 by Peter Gay

Age of Progress in the Great Ages of Man Series, S.C. Burchell; the editors of Time-Life Books.

Dvorak In America: In Search of the New World by Joseph Horowitz

New York Night: The Mystique and Its History by Mark Caldwell

Fads: America's Crazes, Fevers, and Fancies from the 1890s to the 1970s by Peter L Skolnik, Laura Torbet, and Nikki Smith.

I read Jules Verne's Paris in the 20th Century and found it a good read as well as an interesting insight into that century's expectations for the future.

And lastly, there's a book called Victorian England which is part of the Rockliff New Project Series. I have the 19th Century (up to 1850) volume here, by Arthur B. Allen, but I'm not sure if the next one is by the same author or not. It's a little older series, but this volume has provided lots of good information to me.

Hope you find those helpful.

Guess I will be hitting the library today :-)

Thanks for the suggestions...

If the book ends up sprawling into Europe the Verne books could prove handy, but atm the moment it is set primarilly in the mid west to California, though it does begin in Massachussetts and move briefly to Manhattan.