The most recommended books about golem

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. 

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. 

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.

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!

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. 

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.

Speaking of noir, Kiln People is basically Mickey Spillane with replicants. This book posits a future where the well-off use temporary copies of themselves to do things that are dangerous or difficult or just boring. The copies fall apart after a few days, at which point they ideally merge their memories back into their original. Brin’s protagonists are a private detective and one of his copies who decides he’d rather spend the few hours of life he’s given doing something more interesting than his original’s scutwork. I came to this story for the fun premise, but I stayed for the deeper exploration of the morality of creating an army of sentient beings whose only hope is to live long enough to be re-absorbed into the mind that created them.

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. 

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.

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?!