100 books like Finding Venerable Mother

By Cindy Rasicot,

Here are 100 books that Finding Venerable Mother fans have personally recommended if you like Finding Venerable Mother. Shepherd is a community of 11,000+ authors and super readers sharing their favorite books with the world.

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Book cover of The Book of Form and Emptiness

Hoa Pham Author Of The Other Shore

From my list on slippaging between worlds.

Why am I passionate about this?

I want to write about the magic of the everyday and often this is seen in the slippages between worlds like the worlds of the living and the dead. Ghosts and spirits feature heavily in my work and fascinate me as a reader too. This is not in the realm of fantasy to me, ghosts are real and actual.

Hoa's book list on slippaging between worlds

Hoa Pham Why did Hoa love this book?

This story is about Benny a teenager who can hear objects speaking and his mother, who is a compulsive hoarder.

Benny finds a group of people in a hidden wing of the local library which introduces him to a new world where he is accepted. He meets Aleph a drug user who leaves lines of poetry on paper in the books of the library and Slavoj a homeless drunk man who spouts much philosophy from his wheelchair. Ozeki makes the reality fantastic, the work is grounded in ordinary details.

The book is a beautiful portrait of a mix of characters you ordinarily would ignore and makes magic of the everyday. It's this everyday magic that I also wish to capture in my own fiction.

By Ruth Ozeki,

Why should I read it?

3 authors picked The Book of Form and Emptiness as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

"No one writes like Ruth Ozeki-a triumph." -Matt Haig, New York Times bestselling author of The Midnight Library

"Inventive, vivid, and propelled by a sense of wonder." -TIME

"If you've lost your way with fiction over the last year or two, let The Book of Form and Emptiness light your way home." -David Mitchell, Booker Prize-finalist author of Cloud Atlas

Longlisted for the Women's Prize for Fiction

A boy who hears the voices of objects all around him; a mother drowning in her possessions; and a Book that might hold the secret to saving them both-the brilliantly inventive new novel…


Book cover of Purple Lotus

Judith Teitelman Author Of Guesthouse for Ganesha

From my list on exploring the search for sanctuary.

Why am I passionate about this?

I have always been a seeker, fascinated by all cultures, philosophies, and spiritual perspectives. Although the concept is often different—for some, it’s a place of refuge, feeling safe or sheltered from pursuit, danger, or trouble; for others, it’s a state of being, an inner peace, I’ve found that the search for sanctuary—safe-haven—elsewhere—has ancient roots and contemporary reverberations. My novel, Guesthouse for Ganesha, further heightened my interest in this subject, for my protagonist, Esther Grünspan, both deeply wounded and unsafe, was compelled to seek sanctuary. As a first-time novelist with an 18-year journey to publication, I fully immersed myself in this topic’s study and comprehension.

Judith's book list on exploring the search for sanctuary

Judith Teitelman Why did Judith love this book?

Veena Rao’s Purple Lotus is an inspiring story of one woman’s (Tara) search for and discovery of self-worth, self-determination, inner strength, and authenticity. I admired the author’s fine writing which powerfully captures the harsh realities of a young immigrant’s life in an abusive marriage in a new, foreign country, the pressures and expectations from her traditional family and community back in India, and, ultimately, Tara’s ability and courage to recognize that she is undeserving of such treatment. Concurrently, she realizes that her struggles are emblematic of broader, systemic issues, which Tara forthrightly and eloquently addresses head-on.

By Veena Rao,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Purple Lotus as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

2021 WINNER, AMERICAN FICTION AWARD

A 2021 Georgia Author of the Year Award Finalist
Award-Winning Finalist, Women's Fiction, 2021 International Book Awards
Award-Winning Finalist, Multicultural Fiction, 2021 International Book Awards

Featured in Travel + Leisure's "20 Most-anticipated Books for Fall"
"20 Classic and New Books About Feminism That Will Get You Thinking and Talking"
Parade

"A moving and polished novel that highlights Rao's literary promise."
Kirkus Reviews

"Rao's resonant novel is an ode to the value of personal dignity and the importance of being true to oneself that carries on long after the final chapter."
Newsweek magazine

"Purple Lotus is…


Book cover of Wild Boar in the Cane Field

Judith Teitelman Author Of Guesthouse for Ganesha

From my list on exploring the search for sanctuary.

Why am I passionate about this?

I have always been a seeker, fascinated by all cultures, philosophies, and spiritual perspectives. Although the concept is often different—for some, it’s a place of refuge, feeling safe or sheltered from pursuit, danger, or trouble; for others, it’s a state of being, an inner peace, I’ve found that the search for sanctuary—safe-haven—elsewhere—has ancient roots and contemporary reverberations. My novel, Guesthouse for Ganesha, further heightened my interest in this subject, for my protagonist, Esther Grünspan, both deeply wounded and unsafe, was compelled to seek sanctuary. As a first-time novelist with an 18-year journey to publication, I fully immersed myself in this topic’s study and comprehension.

Judith's book list on exploring the search for sanctuary

Judith Teitelman Why did Judith love this book?

I love to travel—both physically around the world and throughout time and history through books. Anniqua Rana’s Wild Board in the Cane Field transported me elsewhere. It is a beautifully rendered and imaginatively descriptive tale that takes the reader to a place few have likely visited—the life and culture of rural Pakistan. It is also a magically realistic tale, a favorite genre of mine. While this poignant story centers on its teenage protagonist, I was immediately captivated by all the characters and their hopes, desires, challenges, and joys. 

By Anniqua Rana,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Wild Boar in the Cane Field as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

One day, a baby girl, Tara, is found, abandoned and covered in flies. She is raised by two mothers in a community rife with rituals and superstition. As she grows, Tara pursues acceptance at all costs. Saffiya, her adoptive mother, and Bhaggan, Saffiya's maidservant, are victims of the men in their community, and the two women, in turn, struggle and live short but complicated lives. The only way for the villagers to find solace is through the rituals of ancient belief systems.

Tara lives in a village that could be any village in South Asia, and she dies, like many…


Book cover of Luz

Judith Teitelman Author Of Guesthouse for Ganesha

From my list on exploring the search for sanctuary.

Why am I passionate about this?

I have always been a seeker, fascinated by all cultures, philosophies, and spiritual perspectives. Although the concept is often different—for some, it’s a place of refuge, feeling safe or sheltered from pursuit, danger, or trouble; for others, it’s a state of being, an inner peace, I’ve found that the search for sanctuary—safe-haven—elsewhere—has ancient roots and contemporary reverberations. My novel, Guesthouse for Ganesha, further heightened my interest in this subject, for my protagonist, Esther Grünspan, both deeply wounded and unsafe, was compelled to seek sanctuary. As a first-time novelist with an 18-year journey to publication, I fully immersed myself in this topic’s study and comprehension.

Judith's book list on exploring the search for sanctuary

Judith Teitelman Why did Judith love this book?

In Debra Thomas’s compassionately rendered Luz, her protagonist’s (Alma) border crossing from Mexico into the United States is relayed in painful, harrowing, and often shocking detail. It is a powerful and, at times, difficult read. Yet an important one. I often forgot that this is a work of fiction, as the story Thomas so deftly portrays is all too common and all too real, especially for a resident of Southern California, which I am. However, it is one filled with hope and determination and the unwavering spirit of a young, passionate girl in search of answers.

By Debra Thomas,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Luz as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

Alma Cruz wishes her willful teenage daughter, Luz, could know the truth about her past, but there are things Luz can never know about the journey Alma took to the US to find her missing father. In 2000-three years after the disappearance of her father, who left Oaxaca to work on farms in California-Alma sets out on a perilous trek north with her sister, Rosa. What happens once she reaches the US is a journey from despair to hope. Timeless in its depiction of the depths of family devotion and the blaze of first love, Luz conveys, with compassion and…


Book cover of Bangkok 8: A Royal Thai Detective Novel

Andrew Pearson Author Of The Dead Chip Syndicate

From my list on that should be adapted into movies.

Why am I passionate about this?

I am the MD of a Hong Kong-based software and AI consulting company, keeping me on top of all the latest AI technological developments. Previously, I worked in Hollywood, writing scripts, adapting novels, and working in production. My scripts have won awards at several prestigious screenwriting festivals throughout the world. However, wanting to expand my creative horizon, I wrote my first novel, The Dead Chip Syndicate, and quickly found a traditional publisher for it in 2022. Release is set for July 2023. It's the first in my Exotics series, which follows the exploits of an ex-pat navigating the Asian gambling world as he gets embroiled in one scandal and scam after another.

Andrew's book list on that should be adapted into movies

Andrew Pearson Why did Andrew love this book?

Another darkly comic thriller that is stunningly original and filled with cinema-worthy characters.

The book opens when an African American Marine meets a ghastly end inside a bolted-shut Mercedes that is filled with deadly cobras. Two cops arrive at the scene, but only one survives the ordeal. Sonchai Jitpleecheep, a devout Buddhist, watches his partner die from a cobra bite and vows revenge.

He teams up with an American FBI agent brought in to work the case. They chase a killer through the atmospheric streets of Bangkok, navigating through a world of illicit drugs, colorful prostitutes, and infinite corruption. Sonchai is a complex protagonist, filled with wry humor and a dogged determination that the reader will admire all the way to its intriguing end.

By John Burdett,

Why should I read it?

2 authors picked Bangkok 8 as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

In surreal Bangkok, city of temples and brothels, where Buddhist monks in saffron robes walk the same streets as world-class gangsters, a US marine sergeant is killed inside a locked Mercedes by a maddened python and a swarm of cobras. Two policemen - the only two in the city not on the take - arrive too late. Minutes later, only one is alive.

The cop left standing, Sonchai Jitpleecheep, is a devout Buddhist and swears to avenge the death of his partner and soul brother. To do so he must use the forensic techniques of the modern policing and his…


Book cover of Sightseeing

Dian Seidel Author Of Kindergarten at 60: A Memoir of Teaching in Thailand

From my list on helping “farangs” understand what makes Thailand tick.

Why am I passionate about this?

After retiring from a career in climate science, I reinvented myself as an English teacher, a yoga instructor, and a writer. I write personal essays about my life experiences, in particular my time teaching in Thailand. Before I traveled to Thailand, while I was there, and when I returned home to the US, I devoured every book I could find that could help me make sense of Thai culture and manage as a farang (foreigner, Westerner) in the Land of Smiles. Here are my five picks for helping other farangs understand Thailand.

Dian's book list on helping “farangs” understand what makes Thailand tick

Dian Seidel Why did Dian love this book?

Sightseeing is a contemporary short story collection that would appeal to any reader who appreciates great writing, beautiful imagery, finely sketched characters, and sensitive exploration of human relations.

I loved it because Rattawut Lapcharoensap is a Thai-American author whose depictions of both cultures ring true and whose Thai characters are not shy about sharing their opinions about farangs.

Though the focus is always on the personal and interpersonal, these stories have an underlying current of social commentary that touches on issues as wide-ranging as traffic safety, public health, prostitution, tourism, and animal welfare.

By Rattawut Lapcharoensap,

Why should I read it?

2 authors picked Sightseeing as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

A collection of stories set in modern-day Thailand depicts this Asian country on the crossroads between the ancient and the modern, focusing on issues of family relations, romance, generational conflicts, and cultural changes.


Book cover of Mai Pen Rai Means Never Mind

Dian Seidel Author Of Kindergarten at 60: A Memoir of Teaching in Thailand

From my list on helping “farangs” understand what makes Thailand tick.

Why am I passionate about this?

After retiring from a career in climate science, I reinvented myself as an English teacher, a yoga instructor, and a writer. I write personal essays about my life experiences, in particular my time teaching in Thailand. Before I traveled to Thailand, while I was there, and when I returned home to the US, I devoured every book I could find that could help me make sense of Thai culture and manage as a farang (foreigner, Westerner) in the Land of Smiles. Here are my five picks for helping other farangs understand Thailand.

Dian's book list on helping “farangs” understand what makes Thailand tick

Dian Seidel Why did Dian love this book?

I devoured Carol Hollinger’s 1964 memoir of her years teaching English in Thailand as I was preparing to do the same thing.

Though Thailand and the wider world had changed enormously in the six decades separating Hollinger’s adventure from mine, I loved this self-described American “matron’s” story about raising a family, running a household, fulfilling social obligations, and, oh yes, teaching English at one of Thailand’s premier universities.

With a refreshing openness of mind and spirit, and despite using some dated language, her observations about Thai people, culture, and customs still resonate today. And her title, Mai Pen Rai Means Never Mind, really captures an essential and enduring aspect of Thai culture.

By Carol Hollinger,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Mai Pen Rai Means Never Mind as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.


Book cover of Thongchai: Siam Mapped Paper

Laura Hostetler Author Of Qing Colonial Enterprise: Ethnography and Cartography in Early Modern China

From my list on geo-politics and rise of the nation state in China.

Why am I passionate about this?

As Professor of History and Global Asian Studies and Director of the Engaged Humanities Institute at the University of Illinois at Chicago, I'm interested in intersections at the margins between cultural systems. I first became drawn to Chinese history after visiting the country in 1982 and returned to teach English there before undertaking graduate studies. My work on eighteenth-century China focuses on ethnography and cartography as tools of empire building during its period of growth and expansion. My current project, Bridging Worlds: Reflections on a Journey, chronicles a quest for personal integration when obtaining an education has too often become predicated on the ability to cut oneself off from aspects of one’s own inner knowing and lived experience.

Laura's book list on geo-politics and rise of the nation state in China

Laura Hostetler Why did Laura love this book?

Tracing the emergence of the modern nation of Thailand from the Kingdom of Siam, Thongchai Winichakul demonstrates that the rulers of the emergent nation gradually adopted the same logic of national sovereignty and geopolitics as its colonial neighbors in the region, France and Britain. The implication is that in modernizing and reconfiguring what constitutes sovereignty Asian nations are not necessarily more benign than their western counterparts in extending their rule’ victims of western colonial aggression are not exempt from exercising similar forms of coercion against their own inner others. 

By Thongchai Winichakul,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Thongchai as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

This unusual and intriguing study of nationhood explores the 19th-century confrontation of ideas that transformed the kingdom of Siam into the modern conception of a nation. Siam Mapped challenges much that has been written on Thai history because it demonstrates convincingly that the physical and political definition of Thailand on which other works are based is anachronistic.


Book cover of The Sacred Gaze: Religious Visual Culture in Theory and Practice

Maya Balakirsky-Katz Author Of Freud, Jung, and Jonah: Religion and the Birth of the Psychoanalytic Periodical

From my list on the work of contemplation and physical space.

Why am I passionate about this?

I am attracted to people and ideas that bridge the internal and external life through their art and writing. I was driven to pursue art history and psychoanalysis for this reason. In one field, we have the external object as the center of inquiry, and in the other, the Self. These books all inspired me to see the world through a new lens.

Maya's book list on the work of contemplation and physical space

Maya Balakirsky-Katz Why did Maya love this book?

Morgan illuminates and analyzes the visual culture of religion that scholars have neglected to consider seriously. His lyrical and incisive deep dive into the visual aspects and social contexts of a broad range of case histories, including religious Americana, opens up the “field” of visuality beyond the object itself and to the phenomenology of seeing.

By David Morgan,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked The Sacred Gaze as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

'Sacred gaze' denotes any way of seeing that invests its object - an image, a person, a time, a place - with spiritual significance. Drawing from many different fields, David Morgan investigates key aspects of vision and imagery in a variety of religious traditions. His lively, innovative book explores how viewers absorb and process religious imagery and how their experience contributes to the social, intellectual, and perceptual construction of reality. Ranging widely from thirteenth-century Japan and eighteenth-century Tibet to contemporary America, Thailand, and Africa, "The Sacred Gaze" discusses the religious functions of images and the tools viewers use to interpret…


Book cover of Teak-Wallah: The Adventures of a Young Englishman in Thailand in the 1920s

Ron Emmons Author Of Teak Lord

From my list on exploring colonialism in Southeast Asia.

Why am I passionate about this?

During 30 years living in Chiang Mai, Thailand, I have developed a deep appreciation of Northern Thai culture and a fascination with its 700-year history. Though the region escaped being colonised as were nearby Laos (by the French) and Burma (by the Brits), a teak boom in the late 19th century came close to pulling it under the colonial yoke as Western trading companies muscled in. Teak Lord explores the frequently fragile relationships between circumspect Asians and adventurous Westerners, against a background of shifting borders and impenetrable jungle.

Ron's book list on exploring colonialism in Southeast Asia

Ron Emmons Why did Ron love this book?

This memoir of a teak inspector working in the forests of North Siam offers a fascinating glimpse into the life of an Englishman coming to terms with an alien culture and environment in the 1920s. Campbell’s sharp observations and dry wit carry the reader through the steps involved in teak logging, from girdling the trees to felling, dragging, and floating them downstream, and offer the chance to share encounters with man-eating tigers and rogue elephants along the way.

By Reginald Campbell,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Teak-Wallah as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

Here is a bold and entertaining account of the life of a European teak inspector working in the heart of the Thai countryside in the 1920s. Beginning with a description of his voyage, Campbell conveys the adventure and the loneliness, the beauty and the terror, that was the White Man's lot and sprinkles his narrative with pithy anecdotes about his various encounters. Teak-Wallah is an evocative tale of a world that still exists, but in which the European no longer has a role.


5 book lists we think you will like!

Interested in Thailand, Buddhism, and Bangkok?

Thailand 44 books
Buddhism 285 books
Bangkok 20 books