Favourite podcasts
Often the best way to discover podcasts is to ask friends “What do you listen to?”. I find myself exchanging suggestions often and decided to make a list here.
I use and Android phone and really like the Podcast Addict app to mange and download my podcasts. It has an integrated search function as do most apps.
News and current affairs
The Daily
From the New York Times. As the title says, a daily perspective on the news contained in episodes around 20 minutes long. Michael Barbaro guides you through one or two stories of the day with interviews to NYT correspondents. Great way to start your day.
Hard Talk
From the BBC World Service in depth interviews and hard hitting questions to personalities from all over the world.
Storytelling & long form
Serial
One of the most successful podcasts ever. Investigative journalist Sarah Koenig takes on an old murder case in a US college and uncovers details and gets the trial re-opened. Very addictive, great stroytelling and leaves conclusions up to you really. The second season was on the case of Bowe Bergdahl, an american soldier who ran off into the middle of Afghanistan and was held captive by the taliban for a few years. His release, negotiated under the Obama presidency was very controversial. I’m currently in the middle of the third season which is around the American justice system and so far has not been as addictive as the previous seasons.
S-Town
Narrated by Brian Reed and from the same people as Serial. It starts as another kind of crime story but then turns emotional and introspective about one of the figures in the story. Anything more would constitute a spoiler but I’ve enjoyed every second of this podcast and it has touched me deeply.
This American Life
Long runnnig radio programme from which Serial and S-Town were born. I can’t say I listen to every episode but the ones I have litened to had some really great storytelling.
Working
Each episode is a long interview to someone in a specific profession. It goes about their typical day and varies from TV star to farmer to salesperson, to waiter, airline pilot…
Caliphate
NYT Reporter Rukmini Callimachi engages with stories fron ISIS and and the fall of Mosul. Gripping and well narrated ten chapter series with each episode around 10 minutes long.
Art and design
99 Percent Invisible
This is probably the podcast that got me into listening to podcasts. A friend who is into architecture and design recommended it and so I started, as any slightly obsessive person would, from the beginning. I downloaded a few hundred episodes and listened to them over a summer when I was working abroad and spending a long time commuting. The podcast spans from architecture to design, art, psychology, sound, even to vexillology. You don’t have to be a nerd to like it but it’s likely you’ll become one after listening to it.
20,000 Hertz
Similar to 99 Percent Invisible but around sound and sound design. This podcast makes you appreciate that extra bit of money you spent on a good pair of headphones.
A history of the world in 100 objects
100 episodes each describing one object from the British Museum collection. Episodes are around 15mins. It was made a few years ago by the BBC and the (then) director of the museum. I still have to finish listening to this one. It puts you in the mood to visit museums.
Fiction
Homecoming
This is a radio-drama. It’s fiction. It tells the story of a mysterious military facility where supposedly servicemen are treated for PTSD after they come back from the front. It was also recently adapted into a TV series by Amazon.
The Truth
Also radio-dramas but short story format. Each episode is stand-alone. Kind of like Black Mirror in audio. Less shocking and disturbing certainly.
TV and Film
You must remember this
A really well narrated podcast about “the first century of Hollywood”. They have series and focus on a certain topic for a number of episodes. It’s meticulously researched. I’ve listened to the series around the Manson murders at the end of the sixties and it’s an amazing portrait of the transition of Californian culture from the sixties to the seventies. The rise and fall of the hippies, political idealism, sexual freedom, substance abuse and extremism. As crude as some parts relating specifically to the murders were, I could not stop listening. They also have a series called the Blacklist around those actors and filmamkers like Chaplin who were marginalised or flat-out persecuted during McCarthyism (Senator McCarty, FBI director Hoover and their witch hunt for Bolsheviks in the US). I also listened to the series on Bela (Lugosi) and Boris (Karlof). It’s about the two actors and how they came to hollywood and became Dracula and Frankenstein’s monster.
The Blue planet II podcast
If you’ve enjoyed the tv series you’ll love the podcast. Goes behind the scenes telling more stories about how episodes were filmed. Plus interviews with Attenborough. Man do I wish he was my grampa.
Music
Song Exploder
One of my absolute favourites. Each episode is around 15 mins and features a band, singer or composer take apart one of their songs and explain how they made it. You listen to the individual pieces, isolated tracks and then at the end you listen to the song in full. It ranges from U2 to Metallica to small indie bands (Snow patrol, Death cab for cutie, DJ Shadow, Hozier…) to film composers like the composer of the Game of Thrones, House of Cards and Westworld title tracks.
Food
Gastropod
Small independent podcast about food “through the lens of history and science”. Each episode is jam packed with interesting facts and is fun to listen to.
Tech
Risky Business
Weekly InfoSec news with in-depth interviews. Two conductors take you through the news. Each episode is around 50 to 60 mins.
AWS Podcast
This is really an audio version of the latest releases from AWS. You’ve got to keep up to date somehow…
AWS Tech chat
Keeping up to date with the latest AWS products is hard. In this series two solution architects discuss projects and how the latest tools can be used and integrated in existing cloud architectures.
Demuxed
Demuxed is a community and conference of video engineers in the bay area. The podcast is rather nerdy but if you’re into software and video technology then it’s perfect.
Uncategorised
The Allusionist
I just started listening to it. It’s about linguistics, etymology and language. The author tells the story of how words and expressions came to be in English and their roots.
The Londonist out loud
Stories and history of London. Nicely narrated.
Planet Money
Economics might sound boring but actually it turns out that it can be made entertaining. It’s actually about interesting economic facts you can relate to, not about the Dow Jones or anything like that.
Italian
I do mostly listen to podcasts in English as most Italian podcasts I had listened to before were really just “catch-up” radio programmes. The following are exceptions.
A pugni chiusi
Riccardo Gazzaniga racconta le Olimpiadi di Messico ‘68. “Un viaggio nell’unico momento della storia in cui sport e politica conversero in un solo tempo e in un solo luogo”. Del fatto che sia effettivamente l’unico momento non sono sicuro ma gli episodi sono ben costruiti e ben narrati con ottime musiche.
Riccardo Gazzaniga tells the story of the Mexico ‘68 Olympic Games. The series subtitle is “A trip into the only moment in time when sport and politics converged in a single place and time”. I’m not so sure about that claim but the episodes have great storytelling and great music.
Veleno
Veleno è una serie che racconta una storia di cronaca reale tra satanisti e pedofili avvenuta vent’anni fa.
Veleno is an audio series that chronicles a crime story that happened twenty years ago and includes satanists and pedophiles.
