What's your favourite book of 2018? Our book columnists share their top pick

If you had to pick your favourite book of 2018, what would it be?

We put the question to CBC Montreal's Homerun five book columnists.

• Author Richard King weighs in on fiction and non-fiction books.
• Chef Jonathan Cheung has you covered when it comes to cookbooks.
• Bookseller and illustrator Angus P Byers explores illustrated books for children and young adults.
• Award-winning author Heather O'Neill and her daughter, filmmaker Arizona O'Neill, are both voracious readers and agree to disagree on their eclectic book selections.

Here are their top picks for 2018.

Richard King's pick: Washington Black, by Esi Edugyan

There is one book, a novel, which was published in 2018 that stands out above the rest due to its scope, the amount of research that went into it, the overall believability of the characters and the skilful way in which the story was told.

That book is Washington Black by Esi Edugyan.

The novel opens on a sugar plantation in the Barbados and the reader is immediately moved by the horrific treatment of the slaves and, in particular, of the principal character, Washington Black.

Christopher Wilde, the brother of the plantation owner, takes Washington under his protection and together they explore the science of the natural world.

As brilliant as Washington Black is, his value to Wilde is not that of a free man. Not since Mark Twain has there been such an effective literary exploration of the horrid contradictions of the slave system.

Jonathan Cheung's pick: Ottolenghi Simple, by Yotam Ottolenghi

Every cookbook from celebrated chef Yotam Ottolenghi is more inspiring than the last and Ottolenghi Simple is no exception.

Known for his delicious and impressive recipes, Ottolenghi delivers on big flavour with show-stopping dishes that are influenced by the traditional techniques and ingredients of the Middle East.

While Ottolenghi's cookbooks are generally well suited for experienced cooks who are looking for a challenge and have plenty of time to spend in the kitchen, Ottolenghi Simple is truly simple and makes Ottolenghi's signature cooking style accessible to everyone. These recipes are labelled by different ways to cook simple, from fast recipes that come together quickly to make-ahead meals and dishes that require fewer than 10 ingredients.

With recipes for every type of cook and every approach to simple cooking, Ottolenghi Simple is the cookbook of the year and an essential addition to every kitchen!

Angus Byers's pick: Idea Jar, by Adam Lehraupt, illustrated by Deb Pilutti

A teacher has a jar on his desk, just for keeping scraps of paper with one word ideas to help his students kick-start all their projects. The ideas come to life and kick over the jar, causing a stampede of wild creativity! The ideas mesh and play, and art is born!

At its core, art -- be it illustration, writing or what have you -- is about story, and all stories start with an idea.

This book kept on bobbing to the surface of my thoughts every time I was in the brainstorming phase of a new piece.

This is a wonderful way to talk about how to harness that raw and roiling creative energy that seems to flow incessantly from children, to teach them how to keep those ideas for when the dreaded "I DON'T KNOW WHAT TO DRAW/WRITE/DO," rears its dull head.

Heather O'Neill's pick: Warlight, by Michael Ondaatje

On Sept. 12, 1943 a baby boy was born in Sri Lanka. My dear fellow readers, that baby was a tiny Michael Ondaatje. When he was but an infant and still too young to know what love even was, his parents divorced leaving him to be passed from relative to relative for years.

He finally managed to catch up with his mother in 1954 in England when he was 11 years old, before emigrating to Canada when he was 19.

It is into this strange post-war landscape of childhood that Warlight is set. It is a London where parents are unpredictable and regularly vanish, eccentric ruffians make your breakfast and come to your parent-teacher interviews, criminals turn out to be saviours, little girls go by aliases and a speedboat of greyhound dogs sails down the river each night after the clock strikes 12.

Ondaatje has created one of the most complex, melancholic, wise, sweet and unpredictable voices to ever bless the page. It is impossible to comprehend his technique. There are exquisite tiny images — just seeds, really, in this book — which bloom so unexpectedly into profound revelations that you almost want to cry out with joy.

Arizona O'Neill's pick: My Sister, the Serial Killer, by Oyinkam Braithwaite

This is an unusual book about the bonds between women.

Set in Lagos, Nigeria, a woman finds herself continually having to clean up after her younger sister as she murders her boyfriends one after another for no apparent reason.

The question of, 'What the hell her sister is all about?' and what her motives are make up the dark, hilarious and true heart of the book.

It positions the deaths of the shallow men as an acceptable sacrifice for women's actualization. In this world, men valuing women for their looks is seen as a form of brutality.

In the end, it redefines morality as a question of women putting one another first always as a moral compass and the path towards true human contact.