Code Switch's 2018 Book Guide

Seasons greetings! Or should we say ... seasons readings ? This week, we're sharing our favorite recent reads. Karen Grigsby Bates, our resident book expert, estimates that she's read more than 100 books this year. Of those, she recommends Washington Black , a novel by Esi Edugyan about an enslaved boy who works on a plantation in Barbados. "The writing is gorgeous," Karen says about the book. "There are a lot of passages in it that describe the sacrifices we often make for love — romantic love, filial love, friendship — even when we don't consciously know we're doing it. And even though this is set in the mid 1800s, there is a lot that resonates about race today." To help round out our recommendations, we also tapped some folks who you've heard on Code Switch before (or may hear soon)— novelists, scholars, poets and podcasters. We've edited their responses for length and clarity. Fiction A Lucky Man by Jamel Brinkley "Set mostly in and around Brooklyn from the '90s onward, the stories