My love of comics and characters goes back to when I was very young. I remember falling in love with Snoopy to the point that I would draw a snoopy head on my worksheets in first grade, and my teacher knew it was from me! Once I got older, and began exploring my Jewish heritage in a more mature way, I was astounded by how many deep and meaningful stories I kept encountering. It was my natural inclination to retell these stories in a comic book format. Part of my mission was to find like minded souls who had a love for comix and a love for Jewish stories.
This book was the first time I read a graphic novel with Jewish themes other than the Holocaust. As a comic book artist who was exploring my Jewish roots, it was eye-opening to read a tale with Jewish characters, especially because it deals with the legend of the Golem, a mystical being made of mud and brought to life through Hebrew incantations. Add to that great action scenes of 1920s baseball, and it makes for a great read.
Before penning his acclaimed graphic novel Market Day and founding the Center for Cartoon Studies, James Sturm proved his worth as a master cartoonist with the eloquent graphic novel, The Golem s Mighty Swing, one of the first breakout graphic novel hits of the 21st century. Sturm s fascination with the invisible America has been the crux of his comics work, exploring the rarely-told or oft-forgotten bits of history that define a country. By reuniting America s greatest pastime with its hidden history, the graphic novel tells the story of the Stars of David, a barnstorming Jewish baseball team of…
This book was published over fifteen years
ago, but a friend of mine told me I’d love it…and I did. It’s set in a blue-collar Brooklyn
neighborhood in 1947.
It’s the touching
story of two vivid characters. An
eleven-year-old Irish Catholic kid named Michael Devlin and a Rabbi from
Prague. A refugee named Judah Hirsch. The rabbi hires Michael to be a Shabbos
Goy. He shows up on Saturdays to turn on the lights and other things prohibited
by Jewish law on the Sabbath. They forge an unlikely friendship as Michael
learns about Prague and its destruction by the Nazis and the rabbi learns about
Jackie Robinson and baseball.
It’s gritty
and grounded, but full of magical realism. The descriptions are vivid and
Hamill creates a real sense of place. It enthralled me the same way A
Gentleman in Moscow did with characters full of hope and courage and
humanity.
This book is . . . a survey history of medicine from the earliest times, centered thematically on how changing concepts of disease have affected its management. . . . One finds a gratifying mastery of recent as well as classic scholarship in medical history and a careful sidestepping of positivistic excesses. . . . Disease and Its Control is a fresh and welcome synthesis of historical scholarship that will be accessible to interested laymen. Annals of Internal Medicine
I studied statistics and data science for years before anyone ever suggested to me that these topics might have an ethical dimension, or that my numerical tools were products of human beings with motivations specific to their time and place. I’ve since written about the history and philosophy of mathematical probability and statistics, and I’ve come to understand just how important that historical background is and how critically important it is that the next generation of data scientists understand where these ideas come from and their potential to do harm. I hope anyone who reads these books avoids getting blinkered by the ideas that data = objectivity and that science is morally neutral.
The thing you should know about science is that it’s a human enterprise. As a result, it’s dependent on human factors like social consensus and prejudice. In this series of case studies of famously expensive and difficult-to-replicate experiments probing the limits of scientific understanding from biology to theoretical physics, Collins and Pinch show how scientific knowledge gathering is rarely straightforward because there are always alternative explanations available for the data. Was the phenomenon real or was the experiment set up badly? We can never know for sure, but we decide collectively what we believe. Scientists are experts participating in human culture, they argue, not mysterious clergy issuing declarations of absolute truth.
Harry Collins and Trevor Pinch liken science to the Golem, a creature from Jewish mythology, powerful yet potentially dangerous, a gentle, helpful creature that may yet run amok at any moment. Through a series of intriguing case studies the authors debunk the traditional view that science is the straightforward result of competent theorisation, observation and experimentation. The very well-received first edition generated much debate, reflected in a substantial new Afterword in this second edition, which seeks to place the book in what have become known as 'the science wars'.
I love mythological creatures! I grew up gravitating toward fantasy books but because I have a narcissistic parent, I got teased for reading them. To avoid the teasing, I ended up reading a lot of mythology because that was a “safe” fantasy option; reading mythology was “educational” rather than “silly.” When I got older, I discovered that there’s a whole category of fantasy books that retell myths from alternative points of view. This subgenre opened new doors of understanding and empathy for me. Reading old stories from new perspectives opens my eyes to a myriad of different types of people and broadens my view of the world. And I’ve been reading them ever since.
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.
'One of only two novels I've ever loved whose main characters are not human' BARBARA KINGSOLVER
For fans of The Essex Serpent and The Mermaid and Mrs Hancock.
'By far my favourite book of of the year' Guardian
Chava is a golem, a creature made of clay, brought to life by a disgraced rabbi who dabbles in dark Kabbalistic magic. When her master, the husband who commissioned her, dies at sea on the voyage from Poland, she is unmoored and adrift as the ship arrives in New York in 1899.
I didn’t want to write about this world whenI could submerse myself in a magical one! I’ve always had a passion for Sci-fi and Fantasy books and movies. With these genres, you canpush your mind to limits that can’t be explored in the normal world. You can investigateimaginary places and fall in love with someone who can throw fire from their hands or teleport toanother time. You can slay monsters and swim with merfolk; you can marry an alien and joinyour two kingdoms. You can even perform science experiments on someone and turn them intoa hulk-like creature who runs around town naked! How fun!
This YA book is about a young woman, Ember, whose parents were murdered when she was young. They were Guardians, which are superheroes with awesome talents they use to keep the world safe. Flash forward to adulthood, and Ember goes off to a university where she meets Aiden, who knows quite a bit about Ember's past.
Ember and Aiden hang out and feelings generate between them. Aiden is keeping a secret from Ember, so he tries his best to keep an emotional distance from her, even though it's incredibly hard for him.
There are many interesting characters in the book; I enjoyed the descriptions of them sprinkled throughout. There is also a cute little rock golem named Lime who is a sidekick to one of the supporting characters. So adorable!
She wanted to forget her past. Love will force her to remember.
Ember Vulterra’s parents were Guardians—people who used their abilities to protect the city of Stalwarth no matter the cost. But when they pay the ultimate price to stop a villain attack, Ember loses her faith in the city’s heroes, swearing to never follow in her parents’ footsteps.
Aiden Stiles was accepted into the University of Stalwarth, ready to start his training to become a Guardian. Yet, a dark secret resurfaces when he meets Ember, linking him to her parents.
Will Aiden risk everything and tell Ember what he…
The best stories are the ones that take very silly ideas seriously. This doesn’t mean that they’re not funny; on the contrary, you don’t really hear the truth until it makes you laugh. These books all lean heavily on tropes, specifically B-movie tropes. I used to write detailed reviews of terrible movies, afterschool specials, and creature features. I host a podcast all about the funnier parts of TV criticism. Figuring out how something simple speaks to the core of us is the height of fiction, and all five of these do that and do it with humor.
Liking Terry Pratchett is a bit like liking pizza: not terribly remarkable.
Pratchett is a master storyteller who commands not only tropes but the idea behind them with such skill that I can read one of his books and never realize I’m getting the most profound lesson of my life. I could have recommended any of his books, and more to the point, any of his City Watch books, but I single out this particular book for a reason. I’m a humanist, like Pratchett, and this book explores his humanism most effectively.
And it’s also an amazing mystery and incredible comedy.
Vimes is back, in all his curmudgeonly glory, in this classic, perceptive and laugh-out-loud Discworld mystery that will keep you turning the pages.
'In my opinion, this is the book where Pratchett *really* hits his stride in terms of the city watch books . . . Is this book worth your time? Yes. A thousand times yes' Patrick Rothfuss, New York Times bestselling author of The Name of the Wind
THERE'S A WEREWOLF WITH PRE-LUNAR TENSION IN ANKH-MORPORK. AND A DWARF WITH ATTITUDE AND A GOLEM WHO'S BEGUN TO THINK FOR ITSELF.
But for Commander Vimes, Head of Ankh-Morpork City…
When I fall in love with a fantasy world, I want to consume as much of that world as possible. That’s why I’m drawn to illustration that is so dense with worldbuilding elements. In my own work, I started indulging this obsession by creating tiny one-by-three-inch books that contained fully-illustrated alien worlds before eventually moving on to bigger books like A is for Another Rabbit, a book crammed so full of hidden jokes, Easter eggs, and thousand-rabbit-wide crowd scenes that my hand hurt by the end of it. Extreme detail is a way of prolonging the delight and discovery inherent in reading picture books, and I intend to keep pushing it to the limit!
Golem’s illustrations are certainly not detailed in the same way as the others on this list; the imagery in this retelling of the Golem of Prague story is composed entirely of colorful cut paper, layered and woven into bold, dynamic scenes. Whereas the first four books I’ve recommended invite hours of poring over worldbuilding detail and density of information, Golem compels readers to marvel over the construction of its illustrations. How does the golem pierce through the spidery paper web of paper smoke? How are the sheets stacked to imply depth and shadow? Is this seriously all paper?!
Retold from traditional sources and accompanied by David Wisniewski's unique cut-paper illustrations, Golem is a dramatic tale of supernatural forces invoked to save an oppressed people. It also offers a thought-provoking look at the consequences of unleashing power beyond human control. The afterword discusses the legend of the golem and its roots in the history of the Jews. A Caldecott Medal Book.
I’m a LitRPG author and narrative designer for the video games industry. I’ve written and designed for many RPGs and have always found it satisfying when the player character’s actions tangibly improve the in-game situations of the NPCs. In my own LitRPGs and interactive fiction, I intentionally place the player characters within communities they will come to care about and see grow as their own personal power grows. To me, a character build is more about relationships than upgrades. Stats are just numbers until they affect the lives of others. Then they become story.
Devon Walker is a rare breed of main character in LitRPG. A well-written female! And while there’s a lot of focus on her classic fantasy character build, there’s as much story time spent on town building and community management. Devon forms strong bonds and friendships with the NPCs of this fantasy RPG world and she does her best to improve their ‘lives’. Stonehaven League is as much about building character as it is about character build.
Devon Walker has one chance to turn her life around. A half-wit ogre, a legion of overgrown jungle beasts, and a power-tripping AI are trying to stop her.
#1 Bestseller in Role Playing and Fantasy | #1 Bestseller in Video Game Adaptations | #1 Bestseller in Metaphysical and Visionary Fantasy | #1 Bestseller in Dragons & Mythical Creatures | #1 Bestseller in Cyberpunk | #1 Bestseller in Virtual Reality
Relic Online is the hottest new game out there, and it’s Devon Walker’s best hope for escaping her hard-knock life. Thanks to her rocking achievements in other games, she’s been hired…
I’ve always believed in magic, the kind that’s just around the corner, out of view. I loved books and libraries. So, it was no surprise that I became a teacher, and later, a poet and novelist. Now, as the author of four novels, I want my books to capture what I love best from poetry and teaching: beautiful, unexpected language, a touch of wonder, and themes that probe the big questions of life. A library shows up in most of my novels along with a bit of the fantastic.
What’s a better family secret than a golem tasked with protecting the main character?
Set against World War II in France, remarkable characters that I rooted for faced unspeakable odds. The book is a testament to what makes us human: The power of love and redemption. The golem, Ava, is a fully fleshed character with her own character arc.
'Oh, what a book this is! Hoffman's exploration of the world of good and evil, and the constant contest between them, is unflinching; and the humanity she brings to us - it is a glorious experience. The book builds and builds, as she weaves together, seamlessly, the stories of people in the most desperate of circumstances - and then it delivers with a tremendous punch. It opens up the world ... in a way that is absolutely unique. By the end you may be weeping' Elizabeth Strout, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Olive…
When I was small, a goblin lived in my closet. I was sure of it. At night, I huddled under my blanket, listening to the unexplainable noises coming from my closet. And yet, I also have felt like that monster hiding in the closet—afraid to enter the wide world, afraid of who I might meet and what they might think of me. I have felt different. Misunderstood. This list of monstrous middle-grade books shows how our story monsters are more than metaphors. They are a way to understand ourselves, our big emotions, our daydreams, and our nightmares. I guarantee these books will delight and empower younger and older readers.
Set in 1875 London, this children’s novel tells the story of a hungry, overworked girl who labors as a chimney sweep and the golem made of soot who cares for her.
I adore the idea of a soot golem as a caregiver and someone to care for. And don’t we all need to love and be loved, even though it can feel scary and risky at times? This story made me want my own soot monster.
3
authors picked
Sweep
as one of their favorite books, and they share
why you should read it.
This book is for kids age
8,
9,
10, and
11.
What is this book about?
From the New York Times bestselling author Jonathan
Auxier comes an enchanting standalone novel about the power of
friendship and the beauty of finding home
Nan Sparrow is one of London's countless "climbers"-children who spend
their days cleaning chimneys. The work is brutal and dangerous. Thanks
to her wits and will, Nan has managed to beat the deadly odds time and
time again. But when she gets stuck in a chimney fire, it seems the end
has come. Instead, she awakens to find herself unharmed in an abandoned
attic. And she is not alone. Huddled in the corner is a…