95 books like Karma

By Cathy Ostlere,

Here are 95 books that Karma fans have personally recommended if you like Karma. Shepherd is a community of 11,000+ authors and super readers sharing their favorite books with the world.

Shepherd is reader supported. When you buy books, we may earn an affiliate commission.

Book cover of The Ten Incarnations of Adam Avatar

Shauna Singh Baldwin Author Of The Tiger Claw

From my list on writers breaking cross cross-cultural boundaries.

Why am I passionate about this?

I am a Canadian-American writer of Indian heritage, an award-winning novelist and short fiction writer, playwright, and poet. I grew up in Delhi, hearing stories from my maternal grandparents who were refugees during the 1947 Partition of India. So, as my work reflects, I’m drawn to stories of resilience in the face of cultural conflict, religious upheaval, migration, immigration, and displacement. My MBA is from Marquette University, and my MFA from the University of British Columbia. I am working on another novel.

Shauna's book list on writers breaking cross cross-cultural boundaries

Shauna Singh Baldwin Why did Shauna love this book?

This Trinidadian writer crosses religious, ethnic, and gender lines to show us the history of slavery in Haiti, Jamaica, Trinidad, Barbados, and Guyana. Adam Avatar reincarnates in different centuries and continents as an Amerindian, a Spanish conquistador, a Portuguese slaver, a Yoruba slave, a female pirate, and a female stick fighter in nineteenth-century Trinidad. To tell his engrossing story, Baldeosingh writes in several historical Englishes, crossing language boundaries, demonstrating how language has changed over time. Along the way, I learned about the different phases of slavery, from the view of the slavers and enslaved. The story invites comparison to indenture, apartheid, and Jim Crow. It was a difficult read, horrific at times. But so was slavery.  

By Kevin Baldeosingh,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked The Ten Incarnations of Adam Avatar as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

This postmodern historical novel addresses power, sex, and the role of the imagination in constructing social realities. Adam Avatar has been, among other incarnations, a Spanish priest, a slave trader, a white indentured servant, and a female pirate. In each incarnation, however, he is killed at age 50 by his nemesis the Shadowman, a fate he hopes to elude in his life as a Caribbean everyman, with the aid of a psychiatrist. The historical periods of his life are vividly portrayed with Joycean grasp of historical voice, examining the wrongs of each period and discovering the malleability of individuals in…


Book cover of The Pearl Diver

Shauna Singh Baldwin Author Of The Tiger Claw

From my list on writers breaking cross cross-cultural boundaries.

Why am I passionate about this?

I am a Canadian-American writer of Indian heritage, an award-winning novelist and short fiction writer, playwright, and poet. I grew up in Delhi, hearing stories from my maternal grandparents who were refugees during the 1947 Partition of India. So, as my work reflects, I’m drawn to stories of resilience in the face of cultural conflict, religious upheaval, migration, immigration, and displacement. My MBA is from Marquette University, and my MFA from the University of British Columbia. I am working on another novel.

Shauna's book list on writers breaking cross cross-cultural boundaries

Shauna Singh Baldwin Why did Shauna love this book?

Sujata Massey is Indian and German. She has written a whole series of books set in Japan or featuring Japanese characters. This is her seventh featuring investigator Rei Shimura, and is set in Washington DC's restaurant world. Shimura's task: find a Japanese war bride who disappeared 30 years earlier. I love Rei Shimura’s wry humor and intelligence. My husband founded, and we owned, The Safe House, an espionage-theme restaurant in Milwaukee, so this book resonated with my experience.

By Sujata Massey,

Why should I read it?

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

What is this book about?

The seventh book in Sujata Massey's Agatha and Macavity Award–winning mystery series is a witty, suspenseful story that takes its young sleuth into the Washington DC restaurant world.

A dazzling engagement ring and the promise of a fresh start bring antiques dealer and sometime sleuth Rei Shimura to Washington, DC. But just as she's starting to settle down –catching up with a long–lost cousin and undertaking a lucrative commission furnishing a trendy Japanese restaurant nearby – things begin to go haywire. First, her cousin vanishes from the restaurant's opening–night party, and then Rei is drafted to help find a Japanese…


Book cover of A Stranger Among Us: Stories of Cross Cultural Collision and Connection

Shauna Singh Baldwin Author Of The Tiger Claw

From my list on writers breaking cross cross-cultural boundaries.

Why am I passionate about this?

I am a Canadian-American writer of Indian heritage, an award-winning novelist and short fiction writer, playwright, and poet. I grew up in Delhi, hearing stories from my maternal grandparents who were refugees during the 1947 Partition of India. So, as my work reflects, I’m drawn to stories of resilience in the face of cultural conflict, religious upheaval, migration, immigration, and displacement. My MBA is from Marquette University, and my MFA from the University of British Columbia. I am working on another novel.

Shauna's book list on writers breaking cross cross-cultural boundaries

Shauna Singh Baldwin Why did Shauna love this book?

The cross-cultural stories in this anthology are painful, funny, and heartbreaking. You’ll find famous and little-known writers exploring migration, immigration, othering, and otherness. We know these problems, but sometimes stories help us imagine alternate ways of solving them, making connections we can build from our common humanity.

By Josip Novakovich, Ana Menendez, Viet Thanh Nguyen , Laila Lalami , Rashad Majid , Carolyn Alessio , Diane Lefer

Why should I read it?

1 author picked A Stranger Among Us as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

Thirty acclaimed writers of international fiction explore the stranger in tales of cultural clashes and bonds. These stories of disparate experience travel beyond politics and multicultural manners to become an essential discussion of otherness. Contributors include Nathan Englander, Laila Lalami, Ana Menendez, Josip Novakovich, Wanda Coleman, Tony d'Souza, Samrat Upadhyay, Mary Yukari Waters, Luis Alfaro, and Amanda Eyre Ward, as well as other accomplished writers from Azerbaijan, Bangladesh, Iran, Israel, Pakistan, and Zimbabwe, some published for the first time in the United States.


Book cover of Everybody's Son

Shauna Singh Baldwin Author Of The Tiger Claw

From my list on writers breaking cross cross-cultural boundaries.

Why am I passionate about this?

I am a Canadian-American writer of Indian heritage, an award-winning novelist and short fiction writer, playwright, and poet. I grew up in Delhi, hearing stories from my maternal grandparents who were refugees during the 1947 Partition of India. So, as my work reflects, I’m drawn to stories of resilience in the face of cultural conflict, religious upheaval, migration, immigration, and displacement. My MBA is from Marquette University, and my MFA from the University of British Columbia. I am working on another novel.

Shauna's book list on writers breaking cross cross-cultural boundaries

Shauna Singh Baldwin Why did Shauna love this book?

Bombay-born Indo-American Thrity Umrigar tells the story of Anton, a neglected biracial boy adopted into a white family. Umrigar stretches past boundaries of race, class, and gender to bring us a tale of moral choices made from power, helplessness, or the neighborhood we live in – and the uncomfortable truths that ensue. I am always impressed by Umrigar’s transparent prose that allows her story and characters to shine through, but even more so in this novel where her characters are not brown but black or white. 

By Thrity Umrigar,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Everybody's Son as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

"Everybody's Son probes directly into the tender spots of race and privilege in America. . . . With assured prose and deep insight into the human heart, Umrigar explores the moral gray zone of what parents, no matter their race, will do for love." - Celeste Ng, author of Everything I Never Told You

The bestselling, critically acclaimed author of The Space Between Us deftly explores issues of race, class, privilege, and power and asks us to consider uncomfortable moral questions in this probing, ambitious, emotionally wrenching novel of two families-one Black, one white.

During a terrible heat wave in…


Book cover of Never Coming Home

Katie Tallo Author Of Dark August

From my list on Canadian thrillers about haunted messy characters.

Why am I passionate about this?

Ten-year-old me once looked in the bathroom mirror wondering who I would become. I tried to memorize the patterns in the tiles to hold on to that moment and carry it with me. My fascination with memory and the past permeates my novels. I love a good cold case—and my August Monet thriller trilogy is all about how the past weaves through the present—informing it, haunting it, transporting secrets. Maybe it’s our long, dark winters, but I see this same fascination in the novels of my fellow Canadian thriller writers. Many have created messy characters haunted by their messy pasts. Here’s a list of my favourites.

Katie's book list on Canadian thrillers about haunted messy characters

Katie Tallo Why did Katie love this book?

What I loved about McKinnon’s thriller was the darkly twisted and funny ride she takes you on from the get-go.

In the opening pages, Lucas admits he had his wife murdered, so this is not so much a “whodunnit” as a “will-he-get-away-with-it” story.

McKinnon gives the reader a peek inside the mind of her very messy, down-right vile protagonist. Lucas shares all the details of his devious plan—how his heart-breaking past justifies what he did, how he charmed his way into his wealthy wife’s life, married her, then carefully executed her demise.

The most compelling thing about the novel is that Lucas is kind of hard not to love, despite being utterly despicable. That’s not easy to pull off and McKinnon does it delightfully.

Book cover of Still Mine

Katie Tallo Author Of Dark August

From my list on Canadian thrillers about haunted messy characters.

Why am I passionate about this?

Ten-year-old me once looked in the bathroom mirror wondering who I would become. I tried to memorize the patterns in the tiles to hold on to that moment and carry it with me. My fascination with memory and the past permeates my novels. I love a good cold case—and my August Monet thriller trilogy is all about how the past weaves through the present—informing it, haunting it, transporting secrets. Maybe it’s our long, dark winters, but I see this same fascination in the novels of my fellow Canadian thriller writers. Many have created messy characters haunted by their messy pasts. Here’s a list of my favourites.

Katie's book list on Canadian thrillers about haunted messy characters

Katie Tallo Why did Katie love this book?

Clare is on the run and on the hunt for a missing girl.

What kept me reading was the tumult of questions that kept bubbling to the surface as Clare reluctantly and relentlessly searches—so many questions followed her on her solo journey. Who is she really running from and who is she working for? What is her end game? Where is the missing girl, Shayna and who doesn’t want her to discover the truth?

Clare is a woman with a very messy past—which is why she’s perfect for the job. She’s got nothing to lose. But she’s also got the past hot on her heels. There’s nothing like a strong, female character haunted by her past to get me turning the pages.

By Amy Stuart,

Why should I read it?

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

What is this book about?

A taut psychological thriller in the vein of The Good Girl by Mary Kubica.

Clare is on the run.

From her past, from her husband, and from her own secrets. When she turns up alone in the remote mining town of Blackmore asking about Shayna Fowles, the local girl who disappeared, everyone wants to know who Clare really is and what she’s hiding. As it turns out, she’s hiding a lot, including what ties her to Shayna in the first place. But everyone in this place is hiding something—from Jared, Shayna’s secretive ex-husband, to Charlie, the charming small-town drug pusher,…


Book cover of Murders and Mysteries: A Canadian Series

Dean Jobb Author Of The Case of the Murderous Dr. Cream: The Hunt for a Victorian Era Serial Killer

From my list on Canadian historical true crime.

Why am I passionate about this?

True crime stories offer a window into the past, transporting readers to another time and place. They reveal human behaviour at its worst and people striving to do the right thing. And the narrative is always dramatic and compelling, with mysteries to be solved, suspects to be captured, justice to be done. My books profile a Jazz Age con artist, a Victorian Era serial killer, and a gentleman jewel thief of the 1920s. I write a column of true crime stories and book reviews for Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine and I teach in the MFA in Creative Nonfiction program at the University of King’s College in Halifax, Nova Scotia.

Dean's book list on Canadian historical true crime

Dean Jobb Why did Dean love this book?

Wallace—a history professor, librarian, and bookseller—was one of Canada’s first true crime writers. This collection of sixteen stories of murder and mayhem, first published in 1931, is a trove of long-forgotten tales. Some of the crimes he chronicles made international headlines. Harry and Dallas Hyams, identical twin brothers from New Orleans, were accused of killing an employee in Toronto in 1893 to collect on insurance policies. Adelard Delorme, a Catholic priest in Montreal, stood trial four times for the 1922 murder of his brother and was ultimately set free. Wallace apologized for straying from mainstream history into the realm of the gruesome and sensational to record, as he put it, “what God in His wisdom saw fit to permit to happen.”

Book cover of Panzer Gunner: From My Native Canada to the German Ostfront and Back. in Action with 25th Panzer Regiment, 7th Panzer Division 1944-45

Michael Dorosh Author Of Indescribable Ordeal: The History of the German 65th Infantry Division 1942-1945

From my list on explaining the experience of German soldiers in the Second World War.

Why am I passionate about this?

I am a Canadian with bachelor's degrees in history and communications and over thirty-five years of experience in the Canadian Army reserves. My interest in the German Army of the Third Reich period has led to interviews with surviving veterans, visits to various battlefields, a successful YouTube channel, and involvement in military-themed hobbies such as war re-enactment and wargaming which in turn has led to the publication of many related books and magazine articles. Like all of us writing on the subject of Germans in the Second World War, I find it often poorly understood yet hugely compelling for its complex legal, historical, and moral aspects.

Michael's book list on explaining the experience of German soldiers in the Second World War

Michael Dorosh Why did Michael love this book?

I think it is only natural to include an autobiography in a list like this, and Bruno Friesen's book is compelling to me for several reasons, mainly because he was a Canadian who ended up in the German Army.

Friesen talks about these curious circumstances honestly and with good humour, and the book transitions quickly from light-hearted reminiscences to a really very good technical study of what it was like to fight in tanks on the Eastern Front.

I thought the book illustrated well how an individual could fight against the multiple dehumanizing forces of modern war and come out the other end with spirit intact. The book juxtaposes well the helplessness of men fighting in machines with their human survival instincts.

By Bruno Friesen,

Why should I read it?

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

What is this book about?

There are few memoirs available of German Panzer crews that focus on the climactic last 12 months of the war on the Eastern Front, 1944-45. What makes Bruno Friesen's account virtually unique is his family background: his parents came from a German-speaking Mennonite community in Ukraine, and were to all intents and purposes culturally German. To make matters even more complex, in 1924 his parents left Ukraine for Canada, where Bruno was born.

In March 1939 he and his brother Oscar found themselves on a ship bound for Bremerhaven in Germany. He barely spoke German, and had never been to…


Book cover of Random Passage

E.M. Spencer Author Of Freedom Reins

From my list on Canadian historical fiction with strong females.

Why am I passionate about this?

I am a Canadian who enjoys travelling and reading historical fiction from around the world. Having had the privilege of living in a variety of areas in Canada from coast to coast since childhood, I can recall listening to the stories of past generations and exploring the locations where some of these events took place. With a passion for Canada’s beauty and the history of its people, I like to research, explore, and incorporate these passions into my own stories.

E.M.'s book list on Canadian historical fiction with strong females

E.M. Spencer Why did E.M. love this book?

I am in awe of the strength, determination, and hope of early pioneers. Imagine uprooting your family from what few comforts they know and travelling across the ocean to an unknown barren land to start over. Where survival means every member working hard day in and day out to build a place of shelter, gather and grow food, and fish the cold Atlantic waters in order to care for and build a life while struggling to survive harsh weather and dangerous seas. Would I be strong enough to endure such a difficult life?

By Bernice Morgan,

Why should I read it?

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

What is this book about?

A new edition of Bernice Morgan’s classic, best-selling family saga. Forced to flee England, the Andrews family books passage from Weymouth, England to unknown prospects, only to discover a barren, inhospitable land at the end of their crossing: a fresh start in a distant country, New Found Land. There, on the island of Cape Random, the Vincent family introduces them to their way of life. To the pensive, seventeen-year-old Lavinia Andrews, uprooted from everything familiar, it seems a fate worse than the one they left behind. Driven by loneliness she begins a journal. Random Passage satisfies the craving for those…


Book cover of Larry's Party

Mark Morton Author Of The Headmasters

From my list on experiencing the Canadian city of Winnipeg if you can’t actually go there.

Why am I passionate about this?

I’m an author who’s published historical nonfiction, science fiction, and poetry—all genres that are represented in the five books I’ve recommended! I also lived in Winnipeg between 1993 and 2002 and loved being there. It’s a great city with lots of history, a thriving arts community, two beautiful rivers, lots of diverse cultures, and a determination to undo some of the wrongs that have happened there. (Admittedly, Winnipeg also gets to minus 40 in the winter and has a tad too many mosquitoes in the summer!). But it’s also where I met my amazing wife! ☺

Mark's book list on experiencing the Canadian city of Winnipeg if you can’t actually go there

Mark Morton Why did Mark love this book?

What I adore about this book—which Carol Shields wrote a few years after winning the Pulitzer Prize for The Stone Diaries—is how it mingles the quotidian and the fanciful and the fantastic.

The quotidian takes the form of the very ordinary details in the life of the titular protagonist’s middle-aged life: The small things that Larry frets about, his ordinary conversations in Winnipeg coffee shops, his very relatable miscommunications, and even his fairly typical penis (there’s an entire chapter called “Larry’s Penis”).

Then there are the fanciful touches—for example, Larry makes garden labyrinths for a living (not a run-of-the-mill profession), and streets that don’t intersect in the real Winnipeg do intersect in the novel.

As for the fantastic, the novel ends with Larry having a vision of how his life might have gone in a happier alternative reality. 

By Carol Shields,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Larry's Party as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

The San Diego Tribune called The Stone Diaries a "universal study of what makes women tick." With Larry's Party Carol Shields has done the same for men. Larry Weller, born in 1950, is an ordinary guy made extraordinary by his creator's perception, irony, and tenderness. Larry's Party gives us, as it were, a CAT scan of his life, in episodes between 1977 and 1997, that seamlessly flash backward and forward. We follow this young floral designer through two marriages and divorces, and his interactions with his parents, friends, and a son. Throughout, we witness his deepening passion for garden mazes--so…


5 book lists we think you will like!

Interested in Canadians, assassins, and India?

Canadians 44 books
Assassins 86 books
India 473 books