100 books like People of the Book

The story of two mystical creatures stuck in 1899 New York who have to make their own way in the world.  Despite their different natures, they become unlikely friends and have to work together to survive. 

While I enjoyed the perspective of both supernatural beings in this book, I found the golem especially engaging. Through her eyes, the reader gets an amazingly detailed view of turn-of-the-century New York as well as the intricacies of human behavior. 

The jinni faces different challenges—he’s lost a chunk of his memory—but he also has to adapt to life among people. Wrapped in a rich tapestry of historical details, the story walks us through their processes of acclimating to human society and facing the dangers of their pasts.

I’ve read this book so many times that I had to buy a hardcover edition to replace the paperback I wore out.

Michael Chabon creates an alternative world where the Jewish people didn’t last long in Israel after World War Two. They wound up in the Federal District of Sitka, Alaska, with a lease for the land from the U.S. government, but now the lease is up, and they have to move. Somewhere. Almost anywhere.

Good story if it ends there, right?

But wait, this one doesn’t.

In the middle of this political conundrum, homicide detective Meyer Landsman finds a neighbor in the fleabag hotel he calls home murdered. And get this; the dead man might be the Messiah the Jewish people have been waiting for.

Good story, End it here? Nope.

Guess who shows up unexpectedly. Meyer’s ex-wife! And now she’s his boss. Awkward!

And it’s also a hell… show more.

Wandering Stars is a landmark anthology that should be the starting point for anyone interested in Jewish science fiction and fantasy. It contains a collection of incredible short stories; it’s nearly impossible to pick out the best. My own favorites include William Tenn’s “On Venus, Have We Got a Rabbi,” Avram Davidson’s “The Golem,” Harlan Ellison’s “I’m Looking for Kadak,” and Isaac Bashevitz Singer’s heartbreaking, “Jachid and Jechidah.”

It’s hard to describe Lavie Tidhar’s Central Station, except to say that it is a fascinating study of various humans and non-humans residing—some permanently, some temporarily—in a hot, dusty spaceport/city that has sprung up between Tel Aviv and Jaffa sometime in our future. They confront questions and answers about family, memory, reality, and what is human—and occasionally come up with answers. A wonderfully written, almost hypnotic book.

Pulitzer Prize winner Geraldine Brooks spins a tale spanning continents and centuries as she fictionalizes the real history of the ancient Sarajevo Haggadah.

I found her writing gripping, and the story of rare book experts, intrigue, and treachery was fascinating. I loved seeing it through the eyes of her young protagonist, master art restorer Hanna Heath.

I’m drawn to novels that combine the ordinary with the extraordinary, the mundane with the spiritual, and Drawing in the Dust does both. By turns, suspenseful, mysterious, and thought-provoking, this transformative story provides insight into the world of biblical excavation—with a twist! Archaeologist Page Brookstone discovers the bones of prophet Jeremiah locked in an embrace with the bones of a mysterious woman. Amazing stuff, especially for me, who has loved archeology since my days in college. I categorize Drawing in the Dust as visionary/metaphysical fiction, the genre I write and most love to read, a genre that bridges science and spirituality with paranormal and supernatural underpinnings.

The golden age of Jewish-American literature began in the early 1950s and lasted until the early 1980s.

Pulitzers abounded: Saul Bellow won Humboldt’s Gift, and Bernard Malamud won for The Fixer. Norman Mailer won twice, in nonfiction and in fiction, for The Armies of the Night and The Executioner’s Song. (Grace Paley would win one in 1994 for stories originally published in this period.)

Philip Roth’s Portnoy’s Complaint, a novel about jerking off, sold more than 400,000 copies in hardcover in its first year. But you can’t talk about the golden age without mentioning Cynthia Ozick. The Pagan Rabbi, published in 1971, contains such essential stories as “Envy; or, Yiddish in America,” one of the most searing (and hilarious) indictments of assimilation—and writerly envy—ever printed.

This book reflects the author’s own experience as a child during the heyday of Yiddish theater. It’s an exciting story that will engage kids with a slice of history as they imagine themselves taking to the stage and enjoying the thrill of the limelight. So many Jewish-themed books focus on the holidays, so it’s refreshing to have others that just reflect Jewish life in the past or the present.

Eugene Borowitz was the leading liberal Jewish theologian of the 20th and early 21st century. Although this book may be challenging for those disinclined to read dense theology, it is presented in a more popular way and contains a theology that has informed the lives of many Jews, including myself. 

As a result of vast outpouring of important Jewish writing over the last century, it is difficult to navigate what is important and what should be included in the mainstream of Jewish life.

This is a curated collection of some of the most important writing and documentation of the period. I found it personally helpful to know what I should be reading and what I should be aware of. It also provides a helpful blueprint for those of us who are educators—what should be teaching in the years ahead to raise literate Jews of this generation, as well as those of other faith communities who may be interested in the trajectory of Jewish intellectual and religious life of this period.