What podcasts do you enjoy the most? What do you like about them?
Do you know of podcasts which, while not your favorite, could be useful or enjoyable for other people like, say, information-dense or esoteric podcasts?
If possible, please provide a link to them.
This American Life is my favorite.
I listen to Fresh Air and WTF with Marc Maron for interviews.
I listen to Firewall & Iceberg Podcast for a very nerdy discussion about television.
And I am strangely addicted to From The Top, which is podcast showcasing America’s best young classical musicians. They have children play classical music and then interview them afterwards.
I like the Car Talk podcast with Click and Clack the Tappet Brothers. It’s their NPR shows released a few hours later. Lots of laughs.
http://www.cartalk.com/content/show-podcast
Tommy died last year so they are replaying the older shows. They did the show so long that they were talking about carburetors.
The Mental Illness Happy Hour is funny, dark, beautiful, and most of all, very real talk about the battles others around us face.
Grownups Read Things They Wrote As Kids is hilarious and occasionally sad as adults read things they wrote as kids.
This Is Actually Happening features fascinating stories, one at a time per episode, told by the person involved.
The Moth, Snap Judgement, Story Corps, Strangers, Homemade Stories, and Home Of The Brave all have interesting stories.
Taboo Tales has some really interesting stories about things that are obviously, well, taboo.
Sword and Scale is a new on someone just turned me on to, and the two episodes I’ve heard so far are really good. It seems to be about crimes and what is behind them.
Mystery Show is interesting and funny, a lighthearted show where the host solves kind of odd little mysteries. How To Do Everything is funny and the hosts do lots of interesting experiments or answer questions.
For financial talk I listen to the Dave Ramsey Show, Radical Personal Finance, or Ric Edelman.
For business talk I like I Love Marketing, 10x Talk, Eventual Millionaire, School Of Greatness, Smart Passive Income, One Day Business Breakthrough, and many more.
I like The Art Of Charm for personal development.
I could go on for days. I have listened for years and listen every day while working for hours on end.
I download loads from the BBC, Radio 4 in particular.
Have a look through this lot. “Analysis” and “More or Less” are favourites of mine. UK-centric of course but interesting nonetheless
Top-quality, in-depth science news: Nature, Science Magazine.
In-depth science news for very specialized audiences: Science Signaling, Cell, Neuropod.
Decent quality science news for the layman: Science Friday
Fascinating, unconventional economics: Planet Money, Freakonomics
Listening to British people talk about Important Things instead of doing my work in silence: The Economist, BBC’s Global News
Science fiction and fantasy short stories, some excellent, some terrible: Podcastle, Escape Pod.
History, mostly military, told in only slightly less time than the events themselves: Dan Carlin’s Hardcore History
Remaining podcasts in my feed, for which I can’t come up with a concise or snarky description: Radiolab, 99% Invisible, Invisibilia
The podcast that I don’t really want anyone here to know about, because I keep stealing one-liners from it, most recently just today (also, it’s about the history of Rome, and it’s fantastic): The History of Rome.
The website link is wonky now and for some reason seems to only go to the more recent Revolutions podcast, but here is an iTunes link.
Tip: No need to start from the beginning. The first few episodes are Mike Duncan finding his feet (just like Rome itself, I guess), so feel free to jump in somewhere around the Punic Wars and go back to the beginning later. That will give you a better feel for the style of the whole thing.
Or, heck, jump in even later if you want, in whatever period suits your fancy. I’ve listened to it forwards, backwards, out of order, a bit here and a bit there, but probably never actually the whole thing in order, as such. Even so, my brain now contains a comprehensive history of Rome, in order. So I guess it all works out.
Oh, another one: No Such Thing As A Fish, by the researchers on QI.
Now and then you do get a sense of why Stephen Fry is the host on QI and not these guys, but for the most part it’s jolly good fun. And you might even learn something.
I guess I’m the only Adam Carolla listener to come out of the closet! 
He also does a podcast called Ace on the House that’s pretty good that occasionally talks about carpentry stuff for the “carpentry enthusiast.”
My favorite podcast at the moment is The Evening Jones. It originally started as being about sports, music and pop culture, and has continued on without the sports talk, since the host got a full-time gig working for ESPN. It’s probably most easily relatable if you are also African American in your 30s/early-40s, though.
I listen to three Adam Carolla podcasts, his show, his show with Dr Drew, and his show withMark Geragos.
I listen to EconTalkfor interviews with economists.Eagle Brook Church has the best sermon podcast I have found. I like the Tony Kornheiser radio show podcast for sports and pop culture. For wrestling fans Chris Jericho and SCSAhave the best podcasts for interviews. For history Norman Centuries and Twelve Byzantine Rulers by Lars Brownworth were great. Serialwas an interesting true crime podcast but was very NPRy.
WTF, This American Life, Fresh Air as others have mentioned
then
Risk: basically like the Moth but no NPR censorship. basically you will hear anything and everything on here, sometimes funny, sometimes sad, sometimes gross, but intriguing.
Serial: The offshoot of TAL had one season so far focused on a single story with a new season forthcoming
Caustic Soda: a podcast where they take a topic and then discuss all the horrible historical, news focused, and pop culture situations. The talk about everything from AIDS to Cannibalism, to failed expeditions.
How Did This Get Made: a review of really terrible movies with some funny comedians.
Mortified: People share diary entries they wrote in their youth that are extremely cringe inducing
The Canon: two film reviewers debate if specific movies belong in “the canon” of great films of all time. Invite audience voting after each episode.
One of my recent subscriptions is Radiolab, hosted my Robert Krulwich and Jad Abumrad. A story from about a month ago called Gray’s Donation will not be deleted until I listen to it several more times.
The two I like have already been mentioned:
WTF
How Did This Get Made?
I live by podcasts. I’ve been listening a few years now as have a very long 2 hour commute each way and my podcasts keep me sane. I prefer those an hour or more in length, but I love them all.
I listen to all of the Radiotopia group: 99% Invisible; The Heart; Strangers; The Truth; Love and Radio; Radio Diaries; Fugitive Waves; Moritified; The Allusionist. I may have missed some.
Then there’s Radiolab; This American Life; Unfictional; The Moth; Stuff You Should Know; Freakanomics; Snap Judgment; Futility Closet; Savage Lovecast; Definitely Not the Opera; Criminal; Answer Me This; Invisibilia; Transom; How to Do Everything; Futility Closet; Story Corps; Tales from the South; Wiretap.
I just started Mystery Show with Starlee Kine - hilarious and lighthearted; Everything Is Story; the BBCs All Things Considered; Welcome to the Nightvale.
I will be adding to my subscriptions from those listed here - thanks!
EconTalk is my favorite, and I also enjoy Freakanomics (except for their feed listing repeats as new), and I still have the Alton Browncast in the queue, but’s it’s not been updated since December or so.
I’m currently listening to The Baroque Cycle audiobooks, so needless to say my podcasts are become very, very backlogged.
Most of my favorites have been listed already. I want to double down on the recommendation for 99% invisible and Hardcore History. Those are two particularly great shows.
I saw The Mystery Show listed twice but didn’t see Start Up or Reply All listed. They are also great,but in ways that are hard to explain. The premise of the shows (behind the scenes of a tech startup and a show about the Internet) don’t do them justice. They are amazing thoughtful bits of documentary storytelling. If you like shows like This American Life, The Mystery Show or 99PI you will like them.
I also enjoy a couple of shows on the Maximum Fun podcast network. Judge John Hodgman is just what it sounds like, John Hodgman running a very low stakes version of the people’s court.
Oh No Ross and Carrie is a monthly show where two skeptics go out and investigate supernatural (or just pseudo scientific) claims by participating. They do goofy stuff like going on the master cleanse and soy lent diets but they also do more serious stuff like a deep dive investigation into the Mormon church. It’s not always great, but it’s always good. And when it is great, it’s really great.
Bullseye with Jesse Thorne is the only interview show I actually like. It’s like Fresh Air if Terry Gross had more idiosyncratic guests. Jesse is a fantastic interviewer.
Oh and I didn’t see Planet Money. It’s about economics, but it’s about how economics actually effects our every day lives. Again, done in the style of This American Life or Radiolab.
If you like sports, Men in Blazers and Dummy the Howler podcast are the two best soccer podcasts around. And Effectively Wild may be the last great baseball podcast, though the Fangraphs podcast can be pretty fun.
If anyone knows of another good baseball podcast or a decent football podcast I would be interested.
The same people make a horror short story podcast as well, called Pseudopod. It also fits the description of “some excellent, some terrible”.
I have 133 podcast subscriptions. It’s a true sickness. But then again, I do have a long ass commute. Anyways, paring that down into my absolute favorites:
News:
Slate’s The Gist
PRI’s The World
Comedy/History
The Dollop
Self-Improvement:
The Tim Ferriss Show
Design:
99% Invisible
College Football:
The Solid Verbal
Nerd Culture:
The Incomparable
The Quackcast, not the comic book one, but the medical one, voted the best medical podcast for a few years running, because the world needs more Mark Crislip.