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Let's talk about podcasts
I really started listening to podcasts when I had a long-ish commute and wanted to feel like I wasn't wasting my time in the car. These days, I listen when I go on walks, cook or clean, or make icons. I have different levels of commitment (for instance, if I'm listening to something I really need to pay attention to, like, say, the Revolutions podcast, I only listen while I walk. But if I'm making icons and am only half-listening, I listen to something like You're Wrong About, which is more like having cool friends telling interesting stories while I'm in the room). I'm always on the lookout for new ones, though.
I had a number of things I wanted to recommend and also solicit some requests, so I thought I'd just lump it all into one post.
Recs:
+ I love the History Extra podcast in general--BBC History magazine staff interviews people, usually historians out with a new book or documentary series. What I like about this show is that they don't focus on any one particular era or topic, but instead will discuss anything history related. It does skew a bit British and frankly at this point I skip most episodes related to the Tudors or WWI because I'm just so sick of those. But you can easily do that--listen to the episodes that are of interest to you, ignore the ones that aren't. (Though I often find that the ones I think I'm not going to be interested in end up being more interesting than I thought.) Sometimes the people they interview are well-established or even famous (I was delighted by an episode a few weeks ago with Mary Beard), but they often interview historians who have just published their first book based on their dissertation, and these tend to be weird and niche and are some of my special favorites. They've got a big back catalogue so you can spend a lot of time with this show. If you like listening to knowledgeable people talk about things they're passionate about, this is the show for you.
This week I'm especially recommending this very odd episode about the United States' relationship with Shakespeare, written by a Shakespeare professor who wrote it as a way of getting to know his own country better. It's all fascinating, but I was especially delighted by the story of Ulysses S. Grant playing Juliet and looking fantastic in a dress and the fact that mid-19th century US was the golden age of women playing Romeo. DID YOU KNOW? Because I did not.
A few other recent episodes:
* William Dalrymple on the East India Company
* Resistance in the British empire
* The Holocaust orphans
* The woman who gave birth to rabbits
+ When I say that Reply All is probably the best podcast ever, I do not make that statement lightly. They market themselves as "a show about the internet," though usually they're talking about parts of the internet that are very unfamiliar to me. But really what they do is investigate interesting people and stories that are at least loosely internet-related. That sounds really generic, but they're so good at it! Every single episode is funny and interesting and I look forward to new episodes the way I do to a new episode of a great tv show. If you are interested in podcasts at all, you should at least check this one out.
Some recent episodes:
* The Case of the Missing Hit: "A man in California is haunted by the memory of a pop song from his youth. He can remember the lyrics and the melody. But the song itself has vanished, completely scrubbed from the internet. PJ takes on the Super Tech Support case." I definitely saw an article calling this the greatest podcast episode ever, which I do not think is true because I think this show has even better episodes than this one. But it is so good!
* part one of The Real Enemy: A three-parter. "The Alabama Democrats fight an unlikely foe in a struggle for Alabama’s future: themselves."
* 30-50 Feral Hogs: "A legit question from a rural American."
* part one of The Crime Machine: A two-parter. "New York City cops are in a fight against their own police department. They say it’s under the control of a broken computer system that punishes cops who refuse to engage in racist, corrupt policing. The story of their fight, and the story of the grouchy idealist who originally built the machine they’re fighting."
* And now I'm stopping because I could literally recommend a hundred episodes of this show.
+ You Must Remember This is so well-made that I legit judge all other podcasts by this show. If you have even the slightest bit of interest in classic Hollywood (and more recent Hollywood, for that matter), this show is without parallel. When we weren't sure for a while if it was going to continue, I mourned like when a favorite TV show got canceled. Thankfully, it's back!
You kind of have two options with this show: you can dive into one of the many multi-part series she does (on the Disney film The South of the South, on the Blacklist, on Jean Seberg and Jane Fonda, on dead blondes in Hollywood, on the Manson family's ties to Hollywood, on fact-checking Hollywood Babylon, on women who were romantically involved with Howard Hughes) or you can dip into the earlier days where she mostly did one-ofs and find one about Audrey Hepburn or Judy Garland or Elizabeth Taylor or more obscure figures like Gloria Graham or Eddie Mannix or Billy Haines. I'm not even going to bother recommending individual episodes because the best thing to do is scroll through the archive, find something that sounds interesting, and listen to it.
+ I also listen to a bunch of true crime podcasts that are usually self-contained seasons. Other favorites include Revisionist History, Against the Rules, RadioLab, Revolutions, Mobituaries, and You're Wrong About. Oh and a favorite limited series was Wild Thing, about Bigfoot which was so great and Heaven's Gate, about the cult.
Requests:
Does anyone have any recs for me? I am mostly interested in nonfiction stuff (the only fictional one I'm listening to is the Magnus Archives, and I am going very slowly with it) and not really comedy stuff. I have enough of white guys making other white guys life.
I love podcasts about history, psychology, social history/culture, forgotten stories, cults. I don't really have much interest in current events podcasts unless they're like Reply All, where they're delving into dark corners and other stuff that gets overlooked. The deeper the dive, the better. I will listen to true crime, but only if it doesn't feel salacious.
I had a number of things I wanted to recommend and also solicit some requests, so I thought I'd just lump it all into one post.
Recs:
+ I love the History Extra podcast in general--BBC History magazine staff interviews people, usually historians out with a new book or documentary series. What I like about this show is that they don't focus on any one particular era or topic, but instead will discuss anything history related. It does skew a bit British and frankly at this point I skip most episodes related to the Tudors or WWI because I'm just so sick of those. But you can easily do that--listen to the episodes that are of interest to you, ignore the ones that aren't. (Though I often find that the ones I think I'm not going to be interested in end up being more interesting than I thought.) Sometimes the people they interview are well-established or even famous (I was delighted by an episode a few weeks ago with Mary Beard), but they often interview historians who have just published their first book based on their dissertation, and these tend to be weird and niche and are some of my special favorites. They've got a big back catalogue so you can spend a lot of time with this show. If you like listening to knowledgeable people talk about things they're passionate about, this is the show for you.
This week I'm especially recommending this very odd episode about the United States' relationship with Shakespeare, written by a Shakespeare professor who wrote it as a way of getting to know his own country better. It's all fascinating, but I was especially delighted by the story of Ulysses S. Grant playing Juliet and looking fantastic in a dress and the fact that mid-19th century US was the golden age of women playing Romeo. DID YOU KNOW? Because I did not.
A few other recent episodes:
* William Dalrymple on the East India Company
* Resistance in the British empire
* The Holocaust orphans
* The woman who gave birth to rabbits
+ When I say that Reply All is probably the best podcast ever, I do not make that statement lightly. They market themselves as "a show about the internet," though usually they're talking about parts of the internet that are very unfamiliar to me. But really what they do is investigate interesting people and stories that are at least loosely internet-related. That sounds really generic, but they're so good at it! Every single episode is funny and interesting and I look forward to new episodes the way I do to a new episode of a great tv show. If you are interested in podcasts at all, you should at least check this one out.
Some recent episodes:
* The Case of the Missing Hit: "A man in California is haunted by the memory of a pop song from his youth. He can remember the lyrics and the melody. But the song itself has vanished, completely scrubbed from the internet. PJ takes on the Super Tech Support case." I definitely saw an article calling this the greatest podcast episode ever, which I do not think is true because I think this show has even better episodes than this one. But it is so good!
* part one of The Real Enemy: A three-parter. "The Alabama Democrats fight an unlikely foe in a struggle for Alabama’s future: themselves."
* 30-50 Feral Hogs: "A legit question from a rural American."
* part one of The Crime Machine: A two-parter. "New York City cops are in a fight against their own police department. They say it’s under the control of a broken computer system that punishes cops who refuse to engage in racist, corrupt policing. The story of their fight, and the story of the grouchy idealist who originally built the machine they’re fighting."
* And now I'm stopping because I could literally recommend a hundred episodes of this show.
+ You Must Remember This is so well-made that I legit judge all other podcasts by this show. If you have even the slightest bit of interest in classic Hollywood (and more recent Hollywood, for that matter), this show is without parallel. When we weren't sure for a while if it was going to continue, I mourned like when a favorite TV show got canceled. Thankfully, it's back!
You kind of have two options with this show: you can dive into one of the many multi-part series she does (on the Disney film The South of the South, on the Blacklist, on Jean Seberg and Jane Fonda, on dead blondes in Hollywood, on the Manson family's ties to Hollywood, on fact-checking Hollywood Babylon, on women who were romantically involved with Howard Hughes) or you can dip into the earlier days where she mostly did one-ofs and find one about Audrey Hepburn or Judy Garland or Elizabeth Taylor or more obscure figures like Gloria Graham or Eddie Mannix or Billy Haines. I'm not even going to bother recommending individual episodes because the best thing to do is scroll through the archive, find something that sounds interesting, and listen to it.
+ I also listen to a bunch of true crime podcasts that are usually self-contained seasons. Other favorites include Revisionist History, Against the Rules, RadioLab, Revolutions, Mobituaries, and You're Wrong About. Oh and a favorite limited series was Wild Thing, about Bigfoot which was so great and Heaven's Gate, about the cult.
Requests:
Does anyone have any recs for me? I am mostly interested in nonfiction stuff (the only fictional one I'm listening to is the Magnus Archives, and I am going very slowly with it) and not really comedy stuff. I have enough of white guys making other white guys life.
I love podcasts about history, psychology, social history/culture, forgotten stories, cults. I don't really have much interest in current events podcasts unless they're like Reply All, where they're delving into dark corners and other stuff that gets overlooked. The deeper the dive, the better. I will listen to true crime, but only if it doesn't feel salacious.
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My favorite on NPR One is Hidden Brain, which is psychology/human behavior-focused and super interesting. Shankar Vedantam's voice is a balm to my soul! I also really like On Point on NPR for the discussion of the news/current events and culture-type stuff.
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I haven't done Hidden Brain, though I was really into Invisibilia for a while (and should probably catch up on that one). But I will check it out! Thank you!
NPR is just so great, though. To this day, nobody manages to have a wider range of interesting people to talk to than Fresh Air.
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I also love The Vocal Fries Podcast: The Podcast About Linguistic Discrimination which always has on very interesting people to discuss how language and society interact. Particular favorites include "why do people 'sound American' when they sing pop music?" and this one on gender-neutral endings in Spanish.
And then, this one isn't quite so society-focused, but I love it, and it's introduced me to so much good poetry: The Poetry Exchange. The hosts, who sound like two incredibly gentle people, bring on a seemingly random variety of mostly normal people (but periodically not normal people, which is always a sort of funny surprise) who bring "a poem that's been a friend to them" to read and discuss. It's been anything from Robert Frost to 20-issue chapbook poems in the past, and it's an incredibly tender mix of personal stories and experiences around literature and some really sharp literary criticism. I particularly love how frequently it introduces me to poets in translation, like this one on a poem by Dutchman Han G. Hoekstra, and Greek poet Georgios Seferis. And I had a real moment with this one.
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I don't know if you've tried You're Wrong About... yet, and I'm not really sure if it would fits your criteria, but I'm going to recommend it anyway! Basically, it's two journalists taking on cases and stories from the past and dismantling common perceptions around them. They just finished a four part series on the DC Sniper case that I thought was really interesting and informative. They do lighter stories sometimes too, like Janet Jackson at the Superbowl, but a common theme throughout many of the stories is that women get screwed over in ways that destroy them. They have an episode about Jessica Hahn that I'm ultimately glad I listened to, but which made my stomach turn at the abuse she endured. They show a lot of compassion towards victims of crime and abuse, which helps me get past my own discomfort with true crime podcasts.
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For more serious history/science/culture podcast, I recommend In Our Time. It's a bit too dry for me to listen to every episode, but I've enjoyed those ones that focus on something I'm interested in.
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I had been under the impression that In Our Time was about current events and wasn't much interested, but I see looking at their website that they cover history, too.
Thank you for the recommendations!