Currently I am listening to the following ones with good regularity:
- Shift F1 I try to keep very current on this one since it is related to current events in motorsports. If I get behind, old episodes quickly become irrelevant. I am somewhat surprised at how it has remained somewhat... basic? ... through its run over the years. I have been watching F1 since about 2012-13 (somewhere in there), and having more folks talking about it with the rise of Drive to Survive has been great.
- A More Civilized Age Feels like everyone who would enjoy this one already knows about it. At first I listened mainly to get their takes on the movies they covered, but eventually it overcame my inertia and I did watch through all of The Clone Wars. I had pretty much foresworn Star Wars after Rise of Skywalker, but Andor did kind of get me back in. Feeling kind of like a mark about the whole thing, but at least the podcast is interesting despite the material they cover not being so compelling all the time.
- Shelved by Genre Finally a Book of the New Sun podcast that hits on the cylinders I've always hoped for. All the other players in this space (Alzabo Soup, Re-Reading Wolfe, etc) are all way to granular and want to take apart the books page by page. You don't have to do that to have meaningful and interesting conversations about the works. In fact, I think those ones run out of interesting things to say because of some responsibility to cover absolutely everything. Nice to have one that is willing to work through the books at a more reasonable and faster clip, discussing what really makes the books interesting without getting caught up in every detail.
- This Machine Kills I have cycled through different "political" or serious podcasts through the years. This is the one currently holding my attention, as I like Ed Ongweso Jr.'s perspective on a lot of things, and Jathan Sadowski also brings good focus to everything. Despite working in the "tech" industry broadly, I have long been skeptical of the industry and most things it produces. In fact, I credit working in it with helping me to develop a strong sense of what is cool vs useful vs frivolous vs dangerous. It is tough to find coworkers to share that skepticism with, especially in a remote environment where conversation doesn't really happen organically. This podcast has captured me because it is having conversations that it feels like I sometimes can't.
Some others that I go to when I have time or a gap:
- Blowback Usually I will just wait for an entire season to be out and then slowly work through this one.
- Nostalgia Trap This used to be much better, and there were a great variety of guests and topics that were covered. Over the past couple years, it seems like the host (David Parsons) has been struggling to maintain that same variety. Lots of repeat guests, and the breadth of topics seems to be narrowing quite a bit. In fairness, I have been paying less attention to it, so maybe the conversations are good, but at this point I've lost interest. Every so often there is an episode description that catches my eye though.
- Delete Your Account I think as my personal politics have solidified a bit more (for better or worse) I have found the utility of this type of podcast to be lower for me. They speak with lots of people with lots of worthy causes, and I do feel bad that I don't have interest in all of them. But to some extent, they are covering lots of the same problems of which I already have awareness. And there was lots of coverage of "online" stuff too, which I have been trying to steer away from in my podcasts.
Anyway, I am probably not in the market for any more podcasts at this time. Four is already a lot to keep up with for me, as my schedule doesn't have a commute, and I prefer to listen to music when I work. But I never know when I will drop off one or lose interest as my interests change over time.