Podcast Recommendations
Great Weeklies
99% invisible
Wait Wait Don’t Tell Me
This American Life
The Unmade Podcast: Strange but hilarious podcast. Two Australians discussing podcast ideas. Over time, it becomes very self-referential.
The Tennis Podcast: You actually don’t even really need to like tennis because the three hosts are just such darn good company
Short History Of…
Econ Talk: Interviews. Less econ oriented than it once was but great conversations with hugely varied guests.
The Grey Nato: “Adventure, travel, diving, driving, gear, most certainly watches.”
Conversations with Tyler: Interviews. You’ll either love it or hate it. Depends a lot on who is interviewed.
Seasonal Podcasts
Acquired
Against the Rules (Michael Lewis)
Revisionist History (Malcom Gladwell)
Cautionary Tales (Tim Harford)
Articles of Interest (Avery Trufelman)
Real Dictators
Under the Influence: All about advertising
The Curious History of Your Home: A British scholar tells the history of the things we live with, from refrigerators to cats.
Wiser Than Me with Julia Louis-Dreyfus: JLD interviews older women about life experiences.
Heavyweight (Jonathan Goldstein)
Self Contained (completed series)
Founding Fathers: An American Dream
Anthropocene Reviewed: John Green, just totally amazing
Detectives Don’t Sleep: Great narrator telling the story of epic detective successes.
All There Is with Anderson Cooper: All about grief, I could only listen to the first season
Serial
Serial, Season 1: I think the most popular podcast of all time is about a high school murder
Nice White Parents: The problems of integrating schools in Brooklyn
The Trojan Horse Affair: An amazing story about controversy in British schools
It Was Said: 10 episodes on Great American Speeches (a not-so-subtle attack on Trump)
Bagman: The crimes of Spiro Agnew
Slow Burn: The season about Watergate
The Edge: Houston Astros Cheating
Nice Try, Season 2: Meditations about items around your house
Once Upon a Time at Bennington College: I’m embarrassed to recommend this. Very gossipy but also about the years that Donna Tartt, Jonathan Lethem, and Brett Eason Ellis were at Bennington. Perfect if you liked Tartt’s The Secret History
Patient Zero: The science, medicine, uncertainty, and meaning of Lyme Disease
The Witch Trials of JK Rowling
Mother Country Radicals: The Weather Underground
Legacy of Speed: San Diego State track team and the ‘68 Olympics
The Big Dig: A whole podcast about, you guessed it, The Big Dig.
Who Killed JFK: Will convince you it was not Lee Harvey Oswald.
Music
Bob Dylan Album by Album: One British guy making his way through all the albums
Disgraceland and the 27 Club: Two podcasts by the same guy, great writing. I can only listen to ones about people and bands I like.
My Favorite Album: Australian guy has on artists to talk about, you guessed it, their favorite albums.
The Great Album Podcast: Two totally average South Jersey guys talk about what they consider great albums. Their taste is frighteningly similar to my own.
Adam Cifu
My Podcasts are: S2D, The Symptom to Diagnosis Podcast, The Clinical Excellence Podcast, and Fortnight in Medicine on Sensible Medicine
https://www.adamcifu.com/podcasts
And, if you are weirdly in the mood to listen to me over and over again, saying more or less the same thing, a list of my media appearances: