100 books like Finding Venerable Mother

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.

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.

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. 

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.

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.

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.

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.

The “many lives” in this series of linked short stories are those of eleven passengers who perish when a Bangkok-bound boat capsizes in a fierce storm.

I relished each story of each life, both as a literary gem and as an insight into something fundamental about Thai society, such as the importance of social class, the role of urban migration in altering provincial life, the potentially stifling aspects of intergenerational family obligations, and the overriding role of karma in Thai conceptions of life and death.

To me, Many Lives is to Thai culture what Thornton Wilder’s classic Our Town is to American culture.

Tom Crowley is an American writer who has experienced Thailand from many perspectives over many decades: as a soldier during the Vietnam War, as a corporate executive, as a US foreign service officer, and as a volunteer at Mercy Centre, a Catholic charitable organization.

This poignant memoir is a series of vignettes that focus on Crowley’s traumatic wartime experiences and the healing he found years later working with desperate children in one of Bangkok’s poorest slums. I picked this book because it shows a part of Thailand that most farangs never see.

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.