I first started listening to podcasts a few years ago when Husbeast was away at a conference for work. It was just a few months after we'd moved into our house, and I was surprised by how unsettling I found being alone in such a big space, especially as I love alone time and lived alone myself for five years before we married. But I needed something to put in my ears to disrupt some of the overwhelming quiet, and voila! a podcast listener was born. Since then I have become quite a fan of the podcast, and I subscribe to something like a trillion of them. (I listen to slightly fewer than I subscribe to.) My favorites are ones that focus on books and reading (natch). I'm always on the lookout for more good ones to stick into my listening rotation, but today I share with you my favorites.
Get Booked, Weekly, Thursdays
This podcast is a book recommendation show from Book Riot, hosted by Amanda Nelson and Jenn Northington. Listeners submit recommendation requests detailing the kind of read they are looking for, and Amanda and Jenn provide recommendations and discuss why they think each rec suits the request. This show is my favorite source of book recs with reasons why the books are worth checking out. I always feel like I have a really good sense of whether I'll want to read a book after listening to Amanda or Jenn talk about it, rather than just gathering that someone thinks it's good.
What Should I Read Next?, Weekly, Tuesdays
Hosted by Anne Bogel of the blog Modern Mrs. Darcy, this show is another book recommendation show, but the format differs quite a bit from that of Get Booked. Anne interviews her guests on the show (guests are always big readers, and often have their toe in the book world in some other way as well, as book bloggers, or librarians, or book sellers or what have you), and asks each of them to tell her three books they love, one book they hate, and what they're reading at the moment. She then recommends three books for the guest based on what they tell her. I love this format, and while it's always fun to hear what Anne recommends (and I've added some things to my TBR based on those recs), the best part of this show for me is listening to other readers talk about what they love (and don't love) about books they've read.
Smart Podcast, Trashy Books, Weekly, Fridays
This romance-themed podcast is hosted by Sarah Wendell of the romance review site Smart Bitches, Trashy Books. The show typically features an interview with a romance writer, conducted by Sarah. Occasionally an episode will be in discussion format with several of the "bitches" from the website and focus on a topic of interest to romance readers. I think of this as a sure-thing dose of smart, interesting women to look forward to each week, and listening to this podcast has solidified my slow but steady transmogrification into a romance reader over the past few years (about which, more in a forthcoming blog post).
The Book Riot Podcast, Weekly, Mondays
A bookish news podcast hosted by Jeff O'Neal and Rebecca Schinsky of Book Riot, their tagline is "a weekly news and talk show about what's new, cool, and worth talking about in the world of books and reading," and that sums it up pretty well. Every week Jeff and Rebecca talk about the handful of news stories from the book world that strike them as the most interesting, relevant, fun, or upsetting. This is my absolute favorite source for news about what's going on bookishly. If you tune in, it won't be long before you hear a "Jeff Rant." They are the best.
The Librarian Is In, Weekly (newly!), Thursdays
Hosted by two New York Public Library librarians, Gwen Glazer and Frank Collierius, this show is perhaps the least consistent in its format of my favorites, but it is consistent in its delivery of entertaining and fascinating book and book-adjacent content. Sometimes Gwen and Frank interview a guest (often someone involved in the NYPL system), and sometimes they just chat about books, often recommending one book and one non-book thing to each other. They also play a game where guests read them a passage from a book and Gwen and Frank try to guess where it came from. I always think that section is going to be dull, but then I get really into it, often yelling at my phone what my guess is!
The Tolkien Professor, Drop days of new content varies
Professor Corey Olsen, medievalist and Tolkien scholar, records lectures about all things Tolkien and makes them available through his podcast. There are numerous off-shoot shows (all available by subscribing to The Tolkien Professor podcast) about a range of topics, from the adaptation of The Hobbit into film to Middle Earth-based online games. By far the best content as far as I'm concerned are the lectures about The Lord of the Rings. Those lectures are complete, so if you're interested, you can just go binge them all right now. (What are you waiting for? Go!)
Witch, Please, Drop days of new content varies
Hannah and Marcelle, the hosts of Witch, Please, discuss Harry Potter, largely from a feminist perspective. Over the course of the show, they talk about each of the books and all eight movies (and occasionally something else related to HP, such as real-life Quidditch leagues). The discussion generally has a fairly academic bent, but they do a great job of keeping non-academic listeners up to speed. Hannah and Marcelle always seem to be having an excellent time doing the episodes, and a great deal of humor shines through. Production of new episodes has dropped off significantly, but all the HP primary sources are covered in the available material, so when you get to the end of the eps, you may feel like you wish there were more (like I do), but you won't feel like you've been left hanging.
(Podcast links above take you to the web presence for each show. Invariably, the best way to listen, however, is to subscribe through your podcatcher of choice. If you're looking for a new (or your first) podcatcher, your Google-fu should snag you some good recommendation lists for Iphone and Android. I use Podcast Addict. It does the thing.)
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