Who else is so over the dumpster fire that is the news right now? I have to keep up with it to some degree, because staying terrified/informed is part of my job as a writer, blah blah blah, but even I hit my limit after skimming the New York Times health section or 15 minutes of Twitter. When that happens, I turn to a tried-and-true palate cleanser. Sometimes that’s my ongoing DIY wall-sponging project that I saw successfully done on Pinterest but is starting to look like the climax of a Rugrats episode. More often than not, though, it’s a podcast.
Discovering a great podcast is like finding a truly delicious takeout place out of the hundreds of mediocre ones in your neighborhood — it takes research, patience, and a strong stomach. But once you find it, you know you’re going to end up recommending it to everyone you know.
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That’s how I came up with this list of winners below. I have eccentric tastes, so these make up a pretty broad spectrum of themes and styles, but in my opinion (which is obviously flawless), they’re all fabulous. I’ve got recommendations for true crime fiends, history buffs, and people who always wanted to know the fears and desires of a bath towel. And the best part? They’ll take your mind off the pandemic for at least 30 minutes.
So, without further ado, here are my 11 all-time favorite podcasts (in no particular order).
1. Hello From the Magic Tavern
Frequency: Weekly on Mondays
Average length: 30 to 60 minutes
Who needs more magical realism in their life delivered by spit-takingly funny hosts? Hello From the Magic Tavern is an improvised fictional comedy show that begins with podcaster Arnie Niekamp falling through a magical portal behind a Burger King in Chicago that transports him to the magical land of Foon. There, he meets his two fantastical co-hosts, Chunt the Badger Shapeshifter and Usidore the Blue. The three comedians spend each episode interviewing other magical creatures from Foon, discussing systemic issues facing the population, and just generally giving each other shit. The actors on the show are all seasoned improvisers from Chicago, so get ready for a lot of laugh-out-loud comedy gold.
2. Everything Is Alive
Frequency: Twice a month
Average length: 30 minutes
You’ll be hard-pressed to find another podcast quite like Everything Is Alive. Its host, NPR veteran Ian Chillag, spends each episode interviewing a different inanimate object about, well, many of the things he’d ask any living, breathing person. The objects answer as genuinely as they possibly can, which sometimes makes you laugh, cry, or have a ridiculous fight with your partner about whether Russian dolls have feelings. At the end of each episode, I always find myself left with a newfound respect for the things in my life that I’d otherwise take for granted. If you need a refresher on why being alive is incredible, look no further.
3. Criminal
Frequency: Weekly on Fridays
Average length: 30 minutes
This is by far my favorite crime podcast, and, yes, I realize that’s a bold statement to make considering the sheer number of them out there right now. The reason I love Criminal so much is for all the ways it’s not like your average crime podcast. Each episode covers a different true crime (although some are two-parters), and it’s never not fascinating. The host, Phoebe Judge, has a cadence that somehow both chills me out and reels me in. While she does occasionally cover some of the more well-known crime stories, Judge usually explores crimes that often fly under the radar, like falsifying cremated ashes or reports of intruders who ended up being a trapped Roomba or a cardboard cutout of Arnold Schwarzenegger.
4. Armchair Expert With Dax Shepard
Frequency: Twice a week (typically Mondays and Thursdays)
Average length: 90 to 120 minutes
Actor, director, writer, and hilarious dad Dax Shepard is on a quest to find out what makes us human and how we can be better humans by interviewing various fascinating individuals for this show. He does so with the Emmy-nominated actress Monica Padman twice a week during episodes that go surprisingly quick given how lengthy they can be. Shepard says he qualifies as an “armchair expert” due to “more than a decade of sobriety, a degree in anthropology, and four years of improv training.” All you have to do is listen to one episode to get why that checks out. He interviews incredibly cool people, like journalist Ezra Klein and actress Alison Brie, but doesn’t fanboy over them (at least not in an annoying way) and gets them to talk about real issues, like mental health and political transparency, in a down-to-earth, non-press-release-y way. It makes this podcast one step above all the other celebrity interview-style podcasts out there.
5. Mortified
Frequency: Twice a month
Average length: 30 minutes
Ever do something totally embarrassing during your adolescence that you’re still secretly ashamed of today? No need to answer that; it applies to all of us. Those cringe-inducing memories are exactly what make up the wildly funny show Mortified. Each episode consists of adult guests reading hilarious awkward things they wrote as kids (think journal entries and song lyrics) and then discussing them at length. There isn’t one host, because the podcast is basically a collection of readings being done worldwide, but there are a lot of fun special guests, like Elijah Wood, Alanis Morrisette, and Busy Phillips. The stories will no doubt make you shiver with empathy and probably sigh with relief that you made it through your teenage years relatively unscathed.
6. Dolly Parton’s America
Frequency: Nine-part series
Average length: 50 minutes
If you love the inimitable wonder that is Dolly Parton, then welcome to nirvana. Dolly Parton’s America takes you down the winding road of Ms. Parton’s life, work, and impact on the world but also attempts to explain her often enigmatic draw. There’s a lot that you probably don’t know about this amazing renaissance woman, which is why host Jad Abumrad followed her on the road for two years — so he could learn and report back via this documentary-style podcast. It opens a window into her music and her drive and delves into some of Dolly’s personal stories that will make you feel like she’s a close friend. The only bummer is that the nine-part series goes by in a flash, and there is currently no follow-up. However, as Dolly once said, “When I got somethin’ to say, I’ll say it.” So hopefully that’ll translate into more episodes at some point.
7. How I Built This
Frequency: Weekly on Mondays
Average length: 50 minutes
Do you think Kevin Systrom and Mike Krieger had any idea how big Instagram would be today back in 2012, when they first established it? Do you wonder how Ben Cohen and Jerry Greenfield turned their little Burlington, Vermont, ice cream shop into the iconic brand of Ben & Jerry’s that we all know and love? How I Built This goes into all that stuff and more in interviews with hundreds of successful business moguls. The podcast has been around for years and produced more than 215 episodes, if that gives you an idea of how compelling it is. Its host, Guy Raz, is great at probing his guests for the strategies, details, and mindsets that really made a difference in their business game in the long run. He also reveals how shrewd practices are nothing without a little bit of luck at the right moment. The episodes with Ken Grossman (of Sierra Nevada Brewing Company) and Julia Hartz (of Eventbrite) are particularly cool. If you fancy yourself an entrepreneur, take notes.
8. How to Fail
Frequency: New episodes every Wednesday
Average length: 50 minutes
I’m sure we all could use a little reminder that failure is part of the process right about now. That’s this show in a nutshell. Every week, How to Fail’s host, novelist and journalist Elizabeth Day, brings in guests like Phoebe Waller-Bridge or Malcolm Gladwell, who share their experiences with failure, as well as how they worked through it and got to a better place on the other side. It’s compelling, funny, and entirely relatable, and it will hopefully help reassure you that falling down is often the best way to move forward.
9. The Shrink Next Door
Frequency: Eight-part series
Average length: 30 minutes
This is one of the most unusual crime-story podcasts you’ll probably ever hear, but it’s so fascinating you can’t help getting sucked in. New York Times journalist Joe Nocera narrates the show, because he actually plays a part in the true story. Nocera tells the story of how he used to have a neighbor in the Hamptons named Ike, who was supposedly a therapist to a number of celebrities and elite clients. However, Nocera eventually learns that Ike never owned the house next door — it actually belonged to Ike’s patient, Marty. The episodes unveil how Ike deliberately manipulated and defrauded his patients and got away with it for decades.
10. You’re Dead to Me
Frequency: Weekly on Fridays
Average time: 45 minutes
Everyone who hated history in school: This one’s for you. You’re Dead to Me makes learning anything historical easy and fun, and, yes, I partially believe it’s because the host is a charming British guy. Each week, comedian and guest historian Greg Jenner talks through the history of a particular period or historical figure, occasionally arguing over preconceived notions and previously agreed-upon facts. It’s easily digestible, quick-paced, and witty. I always walk away knowing I’m smarter than when I started the episode.
11. The Habitat
Frequency: Eight-part series
Average length: 30 minutes
This true-account podcast feels like science fiction, but I promise you, it’s actually real. It’s like Real World and Biosphere 2 had a baby, and it’s quite the dramatic roller coaster. Habitat explores what happens when six people have to live together in a remote environment for a year, documenting a NASA experiment that put volunteers in a biosphere-like habitat on a remote mountain in Hawaii that resembles Mars to see how humans might fare on the red planet. Host Lynn Levy, a producer for Gimlet Media, has been following the experiment since the beginning, and her podcast is a collection of audio recordings from the volunteers, strung together with documentary-style narration that expounds on their experiences.
