I should have put a podcast category on my 2015 list. I’ll just do a whole post instead. Because a lot of them deserve a wider audience, and, honestly? Not sure I could really pick a favorite. Podcasts are so . . . situational, like. At the gym I want one thing, driving another, walking across campus yet a different one. And, when I know the hosts, or the guests, that’s yet another variable to factor in. Like, I like you, dude, sure. But I don’t want you driving to Denver with me right now. Rather sit with a stranger for a bit.
So, here’s the one I subscribe to:
- Booked (of course)
- Mystery Show (just wish there were more more more)
- Serial (okay, haven’t listened yet, but just from fear: I hear they’re way addictive)
- Lore (perfectly balanced, wonderfully researched)
- Nightmare Magazine
- The Moth Podcast
- Literary Disco (this and Booked used to be my only two)
- Pseudopod
- Bat Segundo (first podcast I ever listened to, not counting something McInerney did for a book tour years and years ago. also maybe the first podcast I was ever on? though I was on The Velvet too, way back when)
- This is Horror (they bring it)
- The Outer Dark (Scott and Justin are excellent hosts)
- Miskatonic Musings (these dudes crack me up)
- Lightspeed
- Clarkesworld (I lied, above—I’ve been listening to Clarkesworld for a good long while, too)
I also download eps from:
- Meet the Author
- Myths and Legends
- World Book Club
- New Yorker
And also from shows that do a random ep on horror, or werewolves, or film, or cryptids, or Halloween, or knives, and I can listen to author interviews all the day long, pretty much. I’ve never quite gone all the way down the late-night-radio hole, though. I hear that’s a completely different landscape mindscape. Somebody gave me a flash drive stacked with eps from some specific show once, and I started to listen, but I could feel the wrinkles in the surface of my brain all shifting over like listening closer, so I quietly hit Pause, and haven’t unpaused yet. Maybe someday? Just, as DFW said, the membranes are permeable. And, with me and X-Files territory kind of stuff, ‘permeable’ isn’t really a thin enough word.
Wonder what the best audionovel I listened to was, too? I don’t really distinguish reading a novel and listening to it. Hm. I just finished It today. Was very cool to revisit. I don’t know—no, I do. I think Brian Cranston reading The Things They Carried is my favorite from 2015. And, this is from a pretty tall stack. I mean, the forty hours of it took me a couple weeks plus, sure. But I’m usually good for at least an audio novel a week. If it’s narrated by Wil Wheaton, too, then all the better. He does it well. One I’ve got but have yet to listen to is the dramatization of Locke & Key; interested to see how panels and pages translate when all there are are voices. My kids listened to it (they know the series), anyway, and said it was cool. So: soon, soon.
So, check out those podcasts, maybe. And let me know what great stuff I’m missing. Listing them out, I was surprised there weren’t more, really. I was pretty sure I subscribed to more. However, for some reason my desktop iTunes and my phone don’t seem to be talking to each other about what I subscribe to, so likely some stuff’s slipped through the ever-widening cracks. I’ll find it later. Meanwhile, my to-listen-to stack is already teetering. Wonderfully.