With two national lockdowns we’ve certainly had a lot of time on our hands. Immersing ourselves in a good book, podcast or new work from home playlist, we’ve all been able to make recommendations. Out of this yearn for escapism, we’ve been able to recommend a variety of things through Empoword Recommends.
Books
“The importance of Black Lives Matter was even more poignant this year and we tried to share as many resources as we could on our social media pages.”
A firm favourite of our Empoword Journalism contributors was ‘Airhead: The Imperfect Art of Making News’ by BBC journalist Emily Maitlis. Her book details a variety of people she has met and interviewed over her time as a journalist.
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The importance of Black Lives Matter was even more poignant this year and we tried to share as many resources as we could on our social media pages. One book in particular was read by many. ‘Why I’m No Longer Talking To White People About Race’ by Reni Eddo-Lodge.
Throughout the year we have added to our list of journalism books including, ‘Breaking News: The Remaking of Journalism and Why it Matters Now’ by Alan Rusbridger.
As a source of escapism, we were also able to recommend ‘Cinderella Is Dead’ by Kalynn Bayron, ‘The Year of the Runaways’ by Sunjeev Sahota and ‘The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo’ by Taylor Jenkins Reid.
“2020 also saw the rise of brand new podcasts including, The Creative Key by Laura Medley, Who You Don’t See by Megan Lawton and Honey Soleil by Siena Mirabella.”
Podcasts
To get our news and politics fix this year we have been tuning into both BBC Newscast and BBC Americast.
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2020 also saw the rise of brand new podcasts including, The Creative Key by Laura Medley, Who You Don’t See by Megan Lawton and Honey Soleil by Siena Mirabella. This year has also been about self-help and career help with the recommendation of Free and Figuring it Out (Charelle Griffith and Verity Brown) and Elizabeth Day’s How to Fail podcast.
TV
Where would we have been this year without television. A couple of our favourite shows have been Fleabag written by Phoebe Waller-Bridge, I May Destroy You on BBC, Derry Girls for Channel 4 and an old classic, Buffy The Vampire Slayer.
Films, Musicals and Music
With the arts industry being hit hard this year, we recommended the musical & Juliet, a show that looks at “what if Juliet’s famous ending was really just her beginning? What if she decided to choose her own fate?”.
Another show which was streamed via Disney+ was Newsies, a musical that revolves around the storyline of a group of newspaper sellers.
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Hidden Figures was another recommendation which follows the story of three African American women who worked at NASA during the Space Race.
Finally if you want to know what our contributors have been listening to as this year draws to a close is Taylor Swift’s new album, Evermore.
Neve Gordon-Farleigh
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