I listen to a lot of podcasts. They are an awesome way to pass driving time or to listen to something interesting while I'm working away at something boring. Recently, I've found some super podcasts and I thought I would share them here.
1) This American Life
This podcast is consistently amazing. A group of reporters talk about, at the most basic, life in America. It's also on NPR, so you might have heard of it. Their shows are truly interesting, diverse and really amazing reporting. I am definitely addicted. They have been doing the show for a long time, so there's a huge number of previous shows in the archives. Each week, they choose a theme, and they report stories (usually 2-3) based on that theme. Other times they will use the full hour to report one story. Some of my favorites are a story about a doctor in a small town that seemingly lost his mind one day, the Harper High series (a few episodes dedicated to exploring an inner city high school in Chicago) and another story that dealt with two daughters who were switched at birth. But really, any of their shows are stellar. You should definitely check them out.
2) The Moth
The Moth is a storytelling forum, and it is usually phenomenal. Regular people (or sometimes comedians or performers, even scientists) will stand up in front of an audience and tell a true story about something that happened in their life. These stories can be funny or poignant, scary and sad. The best ones take you on a roller coaster ride, for sure. Some of my favorites include Mike Birbiglia's Sleepwalk story (I thought I was going to die when I heard this story - it is so incredibly funny and I return to it over and over again for a good laugh), Mary-Claire King's talk about her insane week and Paul Nurse's talk about his family tree. There are tons of good ones to listen to, however. I suggest you check it out!
3) The Longest Shortest Time
I recently discovered this podcast and it really speaks to me as a mom. It's basically a podcast about parenting, mostly from the mom's point of view. The podcasts are usually pretty short (15 mins or less), and they cover a wide range of topics like early newborn baby, breastfeeding, crazy things that can happen when you have a baby. Mostly, I find that this podcast affirms a lot of the feelings I have about parenthood. For example, one talked about being a stay at home mom (something I feel guilty about NOT being) and they talked about the boredom associated with staying at home with a little one. How the things they find interesting are not necessarily the same things you find interesting, and how your brain is not that stimulated (so you need to actively seek out stimulation and adult time). It spoke volumes to me, as have several other of her podcasts. It's great to have an honest assessment of parenthood, with all its good and bad things out there.
4) Serial
I can't do a list of good podcasts without including Serial. This podcast is produced by one of the people from This American Life. It follows a murder that happened in 1999 when Hae Min Lee was killed after school one day. Her ex-boyfriend, Adnan Syed was convicted of her murder and is now serving life+30 in prison. This podcast is both good and bad. It is a brilliant piece of reporting, and the subject matter is very interesting. However, it is a real murder case, involving a real high school girl, so it can get pretty upsetting at times. The reporters try to figure out whether Adnan actually did the crime or not. This podcast is one that is finite - maybe 12 episodes of varying length. But it sucks you in immediately (and it was hard to wait a whole week for the next episode to be released!). The good news is that it's now done so you can binge listen to all the episodes at once if you want.
Don't know how to listen to a podcast? Check out this video here.
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