If Beale Street Could Talk, by James Baldwin

This is a story of young love up against a society determined to keep them apart, yet it’s a story like none you’ve heard before. Tish, 19 years old, and Fonny, 21, have known each other most of their lives, friends first, then lovers, and now pledged to marry. However, in 1970s New York, like today, it can be a crime to be black. Fonny has been jailed for raping a Puerto Rican woman, framed by a white policeman who was still smarting from an earlier encounter with Fonny.

It’s also a story of f...