Podcast Suggestions

[MistbornAlpaca he/him]

Hey all, I need some suggestions for podcasts! I already listen to Writing Excuses, Judge John Hodgeman, a number of HowStuffWorks shows including Stuff you Missed in History Class, and Stuff You Should Know. Beyond these are several NPR shows, including Hidden Brain, Planet Money, and How I Built This. However, sometimes I just want something new. Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated!

[CaptainRyan he/him]

I highly recommend:
RadioLab (especially the episode on the "kilogram" and how it is measured")

Serial season 1 (I did not listen to season 2 so I cannot recommend it)

[Fifth of Daybreak he/him]

If you're at all interested in an actual-play D&D podcast I highly recommend Sneak Attack. The Adventure Zone is very good as well, but I'd approach them more with the mindset of they are a storytelling podcast that loosely uses D&D as their vehicle as they are terrible about rules. 

[Pestis the Spider she/her]

Weekly Planet is my favourite. Fans of movies, comics and so on should enjoy it. Although I have to admit I mostly listen to it, cuz I find it hilarious.

[Snipexe he/him]

Hello Internet. It is really funny and entertaining

[Aon Ati he/him]

If your looking for something new from NPR, I suggest Wait Wait Don't Tell Me. If your a big fan of fantasy then I recommend The Legendarium Podcast. If you want to listen to people talk about your favorite TV shows, then Afterbuzz could be a good choice. These are usually clean and fun podcasts to spend some time with.

[MistbornAlpaca he/him]

I took a look at most of your suggestions, here are my thoughts:

RadioLab: I love this show! Thanks, @CaptainRyan The kilogram episode wasn't in my podcast feed, so I'll probably have to go to their website to download it, but I did listen to their Nuke episode, and it was great!

Serial: Thanks for the suggestion, but it wasn't really up my alley.

D&D Podcasts: I didn't actually take a listen to these, specifically because I don't play D&D, and never have, but thanks for the suggestion @Fifth of Daybreak

Weekly Planet: I didn't listen to this one either, but I don't watch many movies or read any comics, so after looking at the episode descriptions, I knew it wasn't a great fit, but thanks for the suggestion @Pestis the Spider

Hello Internet: Thanks for the suggestion @snipexe I took a listen and I really enjoy this podcast. I love its unstructured format, and it's great when I'm tired and don't have the concentration to listen to a nice, tight episode.

Wait, Wait Don't Tell Me: Haven't listened to this one YET, but I will very soon, and it looks like a good one, thanks, @Aon Ati

The Legendarium Podcast: I had actually listened to a few of their episode before you suggested this, but you reminded me of it as I hadn't subscribed to it, and I really love it!

Afterbuzz: I barely watch any TV, so I didn't even look at this one, but thanks anyway!

Thanks for all the suggestions, this added some variety to my podcast feed, and I'm looking forward to listening to more of these shows! 

Edited November 7, 2017 by MasterJack

[Retsam]

I've gone a little ways down the history podcast rabbit hole:

I highly recommend Dan Carlin's Hardcore History, even to people not particularly interested in history.  The name is a bit eye-roll inducing, but it's a phenomenal show.  His stuff is really closer to an audiobook than a podcast episode; (for example: his latest episode The Celtic Holocaust is a 6 hour episode on Caesar's Gallic campaigns, when he does multi-part episodes, they've gotten as long as ~24 hours), and my only complaint is that they're not long enough and don't come out often enough.  He's a great story teller: he takes things from interesting perspectives and gives plenty of details, but never loses the core of the story or gets bogged down in minutia.  

He's done multi-part series on Persian Empire (King of Kings), on the Punic Wars, (Punic Nightmares), on  the fall of the Roman Republic (Death Throes of the Republic), on the Mongolian Empire (Wrath of the Khans), WWI (Blueprint for Armageddon) and the Eastern Front of WWII (Ghosts of the Ostfront), and a number of single episodes on a variety of topics.  

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I also like Mike Duncan's stuff: History of Rome is what got me going on history podcasts: it's not the gripping storytelling of Dan Carlin, but it's a solid episode-by-episode chronological history of Rome up until the fall of the Western Roman Empire.  It's a pretty iconic story, and pretty interesting throughout (though the Crisis of the Third Century was a bit overwhelming).   It's ~179 episodes, about a half-hour each episode once it hits its stride: as with a lot of podcasts, the quality picks up a lot after the first few episodes.

His new show, Revolutions is pretty good too, though I haven't listened to a ton of it.

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And, in the same vein, Chris Stewart's History of China is the current podcast I'm working through, which was inspired by the History of Rome podcast.  The History of China podcast hits its stride a bit quicker than the History of Rome, and overall the I think the quality (in terms of delivery and such) might be a bit higher, but it's a lot more difficult podcast for me, due to the subject matter: 

It covers a lot larger stretch of time, there's a ton of periods of internal strife (which means lots of characters and lots of "moving parts" which complicate the story), and the names are tricky: names are both foreign and unfamiliar to me, and Chinese names are very frequently similar sounding or just the same name.  (For example, there's a "Sixteen Kingdoms" period, in which there are five separate kingdoms called "Liang", four called "Yan", three called "Qin", and two "Zhaos"... and there's more than sixteen kingdoms, too)

It's immensely interesting to me, as I know so little about Chinese History, and it's really well conveyed, but I'm having to put in a lot more mental effort to "stay afloat", compared to the History of Rome.  (And especially compared to Hardcore History).

[Hood he/him]

I like these two podcasts. They aren't that famous, in my opinion. Anyway, here they are:

1. Words For Granted - Tells how English words change over time. The episodes about the word "weird" and "nice" are good.

2. Philosophize This - This is a philosophy podcasts. I like the Nietzsche series. Kant series was good too.

Both of these are <30 minutes. Perfect for me, because my travel is an hour long.

[She Who Cannot Be Named she/her]

Are you into Science? If the answer is yes, try out BBC's Infinite Monkey Cage. A (particle) physicist and a comedian invite a varying panel of fellow scientists and comedians and discuss (and digress) different topics each time. Look out for astronauts, Higg's particles and the infamous Schrödinger's Strawberry! It's usually about half an hour long.

Recommendable: I'm a chemist get me out of here, Where Quantum goes woo.

[Darjeeling he/him]

Yay podcasts! I'll throw a couple into the ring for good measure.

Author Stories - Great series of interviews with a bunch of authors, very interesting stuff. Also Brandon was on it once, so it's mandatory.

My Dad Wrote a Porno - Exactly what it sounds like. The hosts read the steamy romance novel that one of their dads wrote. It's hilarious.

[JustinB he/him]

This is a little different than what's been posted prior - but I host a podcast where me and my cohost talk about all sorts of nerdy things. In our most recent episode we talk about our experience at the Oathbringer release party in Provo. We've talked about some of Brandon's works in our previous episodes as well. We talked about Oathbringer in the latest episode, but we are still reading the book, so we didn't talk spoilers or get too much in to depth with it, mostly just our impressions of the new book and how we are liking it so far. We plan on doing an episode in the near future where we spend a good amount of time talking Oathbringer and Stormlight Archive. So if you get a chance, check us out and let me know what you think. We are a fairly new podcast, we're only on episode 11, so we are learning a lot and having fun. The podcast is called Random Angst and we are on iTunes and Soundcloud.