The most recommended alchemy books

No living writer rivals Hillary Mantel in terms of sheer accomplishment and talent, so it might be annoying for us mortals to learn that on top of it all, she is also very, very funny. Fludd was a wonderful surprise for me after reading her previous works. A mysterious curate joins the parish of a small, bleak British and Catholic town whose priest has lost his faith and whose parishioners are wallowing in superstition. What could possibly go wrong? Mantel elegantly satirizes the eccentricities and harsh judgments of the religious townsfolk, while giving us a thoroughly pleasurable read about faith and love.    

As a historian, I’m rather fussy about the historical fiction I read, and often avoid Tudor fiction as I get annoyed with inaccuracies, but I hand-on-heart loved Virgin and the Crab.

It’s such a beautiful story and I found it “unputdownable”, if that’s a word! Parry has blended historical facts with fiction to produce an incredibly believable story featuring Elizabeth Tudor, the future Elizabeth I, and the famous scholar John Dee, who acts as her mentor and friend, helping Elizabeth navigate the dangers of her half-sister’s reign.

It’s a story of true friendship, courage, magic, love and loyalty, and ultimately victory. A compelling read and one that made me want to know far more about the fascinating John Dee.

Based on a real historical figure, Hotel Transylvania tells the story of the Compte de Saint-Germain who arrives in the Court of Louis XV in 1743 and falls in love with a young woman named Madelaine de Montalia. The historical Saint-Germain was rumored to be an alchemist who never aged, and some speculated he was a vampire. Yarbro gives us a heroic vampire who must step in and save the woman he loves when she becomes a target for devil-worshiping Paris nobility. I loved how Yarbro spun characters from a historical setting into a suspenseful, thrilling tale leaving us wanting more. Lucky for us Yarbro delivered over twenty sequels.

This stunning coming-of-age story is set in the rural Midlands in the 1960s. Fern is apprenticed to Mammy, the village wise woman, but the influence of modernity—medicines, the National Health Service, the increased connectivity afforded by motor car—spells the end for their traditional way of life. In a novel without any other overt fantastical elements, one magnificent scene where Fern, torn between loyalty to the past and the pull of the future, opens herself to the latent wonders of the woods and fields and hedgerows around her, is the key to understanding what the world loses with the passing of old knowledge. 

Why does the past speak to us? What do the 1920s – those decadent years of jazz and cocktails and sex – have to offer the 2020s?

When I was writing my book, I was obsessed with the interwar decades – Sayers’ Golden Age of Crime – and with the detective-like quality of my own work, as I chased scraps of information about my subjects’ lives in scattered archives.

In Lote, we meet Mathilda, who has what she calls Transfixions: fragments of the past, especially the Black queer past, that mesmerize and absorb her. Mathilda’s quest for contact with that past takes her into surreal, extravagant adventures.

This is an intoxicating novel and a must for anyone who has ever swooned before a black-and-white photo, a handwritten letter, or a claret-coloured dress.

Master of the Five Magics delivers exactly what the title suggests. Hardy creates not only one, but five distinct and well-thought-out systems of magic. Each discipline is different from the next in practice, application, and style. The mechanics of how each of the systems functions is logical, precise, and adheres to a well-planned set of rules. The reader explores the world of magics through immersive storytelling and the reader can enjoy the journey without the perception of having attended a university course on the subject material.

The trilogy is seen as ahead of its time and is often credited as having influenced later authors as they explored the subject of magic in fantasy in their own writings.

Carl Jung’s discoveries in psychoanalysis and alchemy caused a revolution in 20TH Century psychotherapy, and the breakthroughs he made have had a huge influence on contemporary spirituality.

My book is deeply based on Jung’s research in general, and then this is his greatest book.

Ancient alchemists were supposedly trying to turn lead into gold, yet now we know they were activating many dimensions in their consciousness to attain the gold—personal transformation, even transfiguration of their souls—Jung’s fundamental discovery.

Romance, exotic settings, mystery. A summer read? Yes, but with great “extras.” Some surprises: The lovers are mature, even wise.

So much for the swept-away falling for the demon bad boy! Then, altering the usual clash-of-supernatural-beings fantasy trope, they possess complex histories singly and among themselves. I especially noted, and took away a keen perception, that if a story has an extremely powerful man (vampire), then for the romance to work, the woman must be equally strong.

A great challenge for authors like me who usually include a romantic interest.

I am a big fan of Herman Hesse, and this is the one book of his that had escaped me, regarded by many as his masterpiece.

This is a really strange book, unusual for Hesse to be writing about the future, as most of his work is set in the medieval period or at least before WWI. It’s not a typical sci-fi read, having philosophical and alchemical undertones, but it is indeed a masterpiece, although a rather challenging piece of fiction.

Quicksilver, Volume One of the Baroque Cycle is an amazing novel and not for those who like quick reads. At nearly 1,000 erudite pages it depicts the lives and confusions of natural philosophers between the years 1660 and 1713 at the dawn of the scientific revolution. Robert Hooke, Isaac Newton, King Charles II, and many others fill the pages with wit, history, avarice, sex, political duplicity, religious prejudice, and wars that seem to pop up by whim. 

The sheer volume of historical research evident in Quicksilver eclipses all other works of the genre. The number of “throw away” lines that reveal deeper research and add but a thought or two to the current narrative is awesome. This is rapture for a bibliophile. Mr. Stephenson is a genius.

Ithell Colquhoun was a surrealist artist, writer, and an initiate of several magical orders. Her unique novel (first published in 1961) has a haunting and visionary quality in the way it blends surrealist imagery and occult symbolism. The hermetic plot symbolizes alchemical processes and transformations and reading it feels like being guided through an oneiric landscape, evoking myths tangled with bodily sensations and fragments of memories.

Not a novel in the usual sense of the word, but a philosophical and poetic meditation on dreams, desires, and the journey through life. This is a lovely edition, illustrated with a selection of Colquhoun’s watercolours which beautifully complement the text.

This book is almost too beautiful for words, and reading it you feel like you are falling into a haunted magic mirror where identity and race are explored alongside a host of deep simmering emotions: anger and forgiveness, fear and vanity. A sort of dizzying intergenerational retake on Snow White.

Woodward's biographical approach, and his good fortune in finding a subject who left so much material to peruse, allows readers to come to know early New England in rich detail. Winthrop was a man of wide interests, including alchemy, religion, and medicine, and he used his knowledge to contribute to the physical well being of his neighbors (Native and colonist alike), to steer the Connecticut Colony through political challenges, and to participate in trans-Atlantic scientific exploration. A fascinating read.

Paracelsus was a man centuries ahead of his time.

The father of allopathic medicine, the father of toxicology, and an iconoclast who encouraged doctors to listen to women knowledgeable in healing arts and who encouraged women to understand the workings of their own bodies rather than blindly accepting the proclamations of male docs, he also came within a hair’s breadth of enunciating the principles of segregation of alleles and of dominance and recession – three centuries before Mendel. 

Combining a murder mystery with a colorful sci-fi universe that’s full of magic? Yes, please. Odd couple Lieutenant Iari and Ambassador Gaer (who, don’t let the title fool you, is actually an alien spy) have to team up to discover why a retired battle-mecha killed someone—an occurrence that should be impossible. The rapport between Iari and Gaer is a delight, and the plot quickly unfolds from a mere murder to something far more sinister. I absolutely love the world that Eason creates—it has the scale of a video game-like Mass Effect while simultaneously creating compelling characters. 

Years ago, I met Gigi Pandian at a mystery conference. She is a gifted and spiritual woman. I adore her writing.

In this book, Zoe Faust, an alchemist, moves to the Northwest and discovers a stowaway in her luggage—a live gargoyle named Dorian who can cook French cuisine! Oh, man, wouldn’t you love to have a “familiar” that cooks?

Zoe moved, hoping to put her old life behind her, but she can’t when she discovers her new friend Dorian is turning to stone and only she can save him. 

This story is clever beyond words. FYI, Gigi is a gargoyle expert! If you meet her, ask to see her collection of photographs.

Mattie is an automaton who has studied alchemy to earn independence from her creator, a man who treats her at times like a machine and at times as a woman, and who refuses to give up his control over her. She innocently takes a job to help the city’s gargoyles, never suspecting it will lead her down a path to dark political intrigue, passion, and the worst betrayal of all.

This book is deeply charming and lovely, a pleasure to read whether it’s a description of the city or a scene of action and feelings — of which there are many; Mattie’s rich interior world and her determination bring this story to life. Despite her relative lack of power she is not a woman to be underestimated.

This well-researched and in-depth account has been translated from French and discusses the various occult movements which inspired the art and ideas of the surrealists. It covers a diverse range of topics including divination, astrology, myth, voodoo, Gnosticism, freemasonry, alchemy, secret societies, and Celticism and shows how various artists and writers took inspiration from these systems. The book contains a selection of images, copious notes, a substantial bibliography, and a good index making this an indispensable research tool for aspiring scholars of surrealism and the occult.  

If my previous selections showed up for me at a time of profound shift and helped reignite my creativity, I was already an established author by the time I discovered The Alchemyst.

What I was looking for in those days was a compelling story, and what attracted me to this one was its blend of magic and mythology played out in a contemporary setting and involving a real-life historical figure. I love what I guess you’d call fictional biography, and the Nicholas Flamel series must be the most creative example of the genre I have ever come across. 

At the same time, Michael Scott’s imaginative use of the historical Nicholas Flamel inspired me to borrow real-life personages for my other (non-fantasy) fiction series.

This book contains an incredible amount of detail and diagrams about the enigmatic “Dr Robert Fludd” who I regard as just another alias of the Bard.

Fludd, like Sir Francis Bacon was a proto scientist - way ahead of his time - with a background matching closely my own beliefs about the true origin of the polymath. It offers a whole new perspective on what the Bard actually knew in addition to writing poems and plays