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Jason's 2020 Favorite Books, Music, & Video
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A Deadly Education : a novel
by Naomi Novik
Fantasy - An unwilling dark sorceress destined to rewrite the rules of magic clashes with a popular combat sorcerer while resolving to spare the lives of innocents. By the award-winning author of the Temeraire series.
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Manic / by Halsey
Music - Alternative pop music maverick Halsey releases her third full-length album. The first single, Without Me, has sold over five million copies. It also includes the new single Graveyard.
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This is How You Lose the Time War
by Amal El-Mohtar
Science Fiction - Two time-traveling agents from warring futures, working their way through the past, begin to exchange letters and soon fall in love, even though the discovery of their bond could mean death for each of them.
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Good Talk : a memoir in conversations
by Mira Jacob
Graphic Memoir - The author of the critically acclaimed The Sleepwalker's Guide to Dancing presents an intimate graphic memoir about American identity as it has shaped his interracial family in the aftermath of the 2016 elections.
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Good Place - Season 1
TV - After her death, a woman wakes up in the Good Place, an afterlife town inhabited by the people who have led righteous lives, but the problem is that she gets sent there by mistake.
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When They Call You a Terrorist : a black lives matter memoir
by Patrisse Khan-Cullors
Memoir - A lyrical memoir by the co-founder of the Black Lives Matter movement urges readers to understand the movement's position of love, humanity and justice, challenging perspectives that have negatively labeled the movement's activists while calling for essential political changes. Co-written by the award-winning author of The Prisoner's Wife.
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The Priory of the Orange Tree
by Samantha Shannon
Fantasy - Queen Sabran fights off assassination attempts to continue her ruling line and is protected with forbidden magic by a court outsider, while a secret society works to prevent a dragon war.
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Schitt$ Creek - Season 1
TV - When filthy-rich video store magnate Johnny Rose, his soap star wife Moira and their two kids -- über-hipster son David and socialite daughter Alexis -- suddenly find themselves broke, they are forced to leave their pampered lives to regroup and rebuild their empire from within the rural city limits of their only remaining asset - Schitt's Creek, an armpit of a town they once bought as a joke.
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They Called Us Enemy
by George Takei
Memoir / Graphic Novel - The iconic actor and activist presents a graphic memoir detailing his experiences as a child prisoner in the Japanese-American internment camps of World War II, reflecting on the hard choices his family made in the face of legalized racism.
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Last Day on Mars
by Kevin Emerson
Kids Science Fiction - Moving to Mars with his scientist parents and the other survivors of Earth when the sun inexplicably starts to go supernova, Liam, a boy from the early 23rd century, makes a profound discovery about the nature of time and space.
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Sanditon
TV - A spirited young woman leaves behind her life at her rural home and moves to Sanditon, a fishing village looking to re-establish itself as a seaside resort town.
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Between the World and Me
by Ta-Nehisi Coates
Nonfiction / Audiobook - The author presents a history of racial discrimination in the United States and a narrative of his own personal experiences of contemporary race relations, offering possible resolutions for the future.
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The bone houses
by Emily Lloyd-Jones
Teen Fantasy - Enduring a meager existence as a gravedigger after the death of her parents, Ryn teams up with apprentice mapmaker Ellis to stop an undead plague linked to a decades-old curse. By the author of Deceptive.
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Guts
by Raina Telgemeier
Kid Graphic Novel - Developing a chronic stomachache that she initially dismisses as a bug, young Raina discovers that her symptoms are related to her anxieties about school, food and changing friendships, in a story based on the Eisner Award-winning author’s childhood.
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Great British Baking Show - Season 5
TV - Amateur British bakers compete in a series of weekly baking challenges, with each episode introducing a new technical skill and a challenge in each of three categories: Sigature Bake, to test creative flair and basic baking ability; Technical Bake, in which contestants are given basic recipes consisting of an ingredients list and minimal instruction; and Showstopper Bake, designed to display baking virtuosity.
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Red Sister
by Mark Lawrence
Fantasy - Entering a convent where girls are selected to train in either religion, combat or magic, Nona, while training in combat, finds herself at the center of an epic battle for empire on the outer reaches of a dying universe. By the international best-selling author of the Broken Empire and the Red Queen's War Trilogies.
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High Road / by Kesha
Music - Kesha's follow-up to her Grammy-nominated album Rainbow sees her embark on a joyful musical journey of self-discovery. There are a wide array of emotions captured on tracks like Raising Hell and My Own Dance.
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Drama
by Raina Telgemeier
Graphic Novel - Designing sets for her middle school's play, Callie tries to overcome limited carpentry skills, low ticket sales and squabbling crew members only to find her efforts further complicated by the arrival of two cute brothers. By the award-winning author of Smile.
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March. Book one
by John Lewis
Graphic Novel / Nonfiction - A first-hand account of the author's lifelong struggle for civil and human rights spans his youth in rural Alabama, his life-changing meeting with Martin Luther King, Jr., and the birth of the Nashville Student Movement.
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The Tea Dragon Society
by Katie O'Neill
Graphic Novel - When Greta, a blacksmith apprentice, discovers a lost tea dragon at the marketplace, she learns about the dying art form from Hesekiel and Erik.
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Single Parents - Season 1
TV - Follows the adventures of a group of single parents as they try to balance raising their kids with their own personal pursuits
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The Dispatcher
by John Scalzi
Sci-Fi - In a future in which the murdered are resurrected, dispatchers kill those near death to ultimately save lives, but when Tony goes in search of a fellow dispatcher who's gone missing, he considers the ethical ambiguities of his role.
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Peace Talks : a novel of the Dresden files
by Jim Butcher
Fantasy / Audiobook - Joining the White Council’s security team to help facilitate peace among hostile supernatural nations, wizard Harry Dresden is confronted by manipulative political forces that threaten all of Chicago. By the best-selling author of the Codex Alera series.
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Folklore - by Taylor Swift
Music - On her eighth studio album, Taylor Swift poured all her whims, dreams, fears, and musings into the seventeen tracks. She collaborated with some of her musical heroes: Aaron Dessner, Bon Iver, William Bowery, and Jack Antonoff.
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How to Fight a Dragon's Fury
by Cressida Cowell
Kids Fantasy / Audiobook - A finale to the best-selling series finds Hiccup embarking on an ultimate quest to secure the future of dragonkind, end the rebellion and prove his worthiness for the crown in the wake of the Doomsday of Yule's arrival.
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How to be an Antiracist
by Ibram X. Kendi
Nonfiction - A best-selling author, National Book Award-winner and professor combines ethics, history, law and science with a personal narrative to describe how to move beyond the awareness of racism and contribute to making society just and equitable.
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Uprooted
by Naomi Novik
Fantasy - A tale inspired by the "Beauty and the Beast" story follows the experiences of Agnieszka, who becomes the latest girl chosen to serve an immortal wizard who protects their village from the malevolent forces of a nearby forest.
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