Podcasts requested!

November 20, 2015 7:00 AM

I'm returning to work from maternity leave, and my daily 2 hours in the car is the only time I'm guaranteed to myself. Help me make it the best time possible with podcasts! I'm looking specifically for podcasts on: yoga, running, cooking (bonus points for vegetarian or vegan), music, and history.

I am subscribed to and absolutely love Hardcore History. I'm also into Backstory, Sawbones, and Revolutions, and enjoyed Serial although it made me feel weird on an ethical level. I used to listen to Running Academy but found the format got old after a while.

For yoga, I'm looking for podcasts that discuss how to deepen your practice and carry over the benefits from yoga throughout the day, as well as motivation to continue a daily practice. I'd also be interested in interviews with yoga teachers and discussions about meditation practice as well. Just no actual yoga or meditation, as I'll be driving.

For running, I'm looking for motivation (a marathon in Fall 2016 is on my agenda), suggestions for workouts, and form tips.

Cooking, I'm hoping for inspiration for quick meals, and great conversations about food and cooking.

For music, I'd love some suggestions to help me discover new music. I've been listening to the same six albums since college and everyone in my house is tired of Pink Floyd and the Last Five Years soundtrack.

As far as history goes, anything even a little bit like Hardcore History will be a hit.

Any suggestions?

posted by House of Leaves of Grass to Grab Bag (24 answers total)

Song Exploder might work for discovering new music. Or, well, going old school and listening to the radio (if you can stream radio in your car, I am fond of my local radio station, the current)
posted by dinty_moore at 7:03 AM on November 20, 2015 [1 favorite]

For history - I like Stuff Mom Never Told You (pretty good range of topics covered with a feminist angle) and Stuff You Should Know (a reallllllly wide range of topics with pretty detailed info, good banter between the hosts).
posted by pintapicasso at 7:07 AM on November 20, 2015

The Marathon Show just got a reboot a few months ago and has some good stuff!
posted by roomthreeseventeen at 7:12 AM on November 20, 2015

For cooking, America's Test Kitchen radio is pretty solid. I loved the Alton Browncast, but I don't know where it went. Still a good amount of backlog to get through, though (especially the William Shatner episode, seriously).
posted by General Malaise at 7:18 AM on November 20, 2015

For history Stuff You Missed in History Class is a lot of fun and covers a wide variety of interesting topics.
posted by scififan at 7:25 AM on November 20, 2015 [1 favorite]

You might like the Yoga International podcast. It's a mix of philosophy, practice-deepening, yoga biz, and other, so you might prefer some more than others.
posted by instamatic at 7:32 AM on November 20, 2015

For cooking, I like Burnt Toast and The Splendid Table both quite a lot, although they are not vegan-focused so you'd want to check each show's specific topic to decide if you're interested. For history, I bet you would like BackStory - they take various topics from U.S. history and interview different experts on their take on that topic at various points in U.S. history (for example, a recent one on diability in American interviewed a president of a deaf university about the student protests that led to him bein appointed (he was the first president who was also deaf), a disabled actor who appeared on American Horror Story: Freak Show, a historian who talked about what "freak shows" were really like and their role in the lives of people with disabilities, and a few other topics).
posted by rainbowbrite at 7:34 AM on November 20, 2015

The Splendid Table is a great cooking podcast, but not really veggie-focused or about weeknight dinners. I think you should give it a listen, though.

History:

I am currently listening to The History of English, which is really well done.

The subreddit Ask Historians has a podcast that's a fun grab bag of topics (basically people talking about their speciality). How good the episode is depends on the guest.
posted by quaking fajita at 7:38 AM on November 20, 2015

Oh! Born Yesterday is also great but hasn't updated in a year :(
posted by quaking fajita at 7:39 AM on November 20, 2015

Here are my history suggestions, minus a few great ones that people have already mentioned.

10 U.S. Presidents -- Known podcasting personalities take an in-depth look at ten U.S. Presidents and their influence on politics.

Backstory -- Hour-long podcasts about American history starring three professors specializing in different centuries.

Damn Interesting -- A podcast about weird history on a large variety of subjects. I really like it because a lot of the stuff they podcast on are things I've never heard of.

Footnoting History -- A mostly-female-hosted podcast about little interesting overlooked bits of history.

Lore -- True podcasts about weird or paranormal events through history. This kind of feels like a paranormal version of The Memory Palace, I can't wait for the narrator to find his own voice.

The Memory Palace -- Short, quiet podcasts about little forgotten snippets of history. Every time I finish an episode I want another one.

You Must Remember This -- A history podcast about the old Hollywood era. I stayed away from this podcast for a long time because I don't really have much interest in the era, but as soon as I started listening, I was completely hooked.
posted by possibilityleft at 7:44 AM on November 20, 2015 [1 favorite]

For history, you might like The Allusionist, which is a short zippy show about language history, sort of a pop-culture etymology show.

The Memory Palace is also very short, tiny little moments of history. (On preview I see possibilityleft covered this and my favorite podcast YMRT.)
posted by Lyn Never at 7:45 AM on November 20, 2015 [1 favorite]

You Must Remember This is amazing. The Manson series was riveting. Binge-listened the whole thing.
posted by Cool Papa Bell at 7:49 AM on November 20, 2015

Can I throw a little weirdness your way?
I love Monstertalk, a cryptozoology podcast put out by the good folks at Skeptic magazine.

It's weirdness AND science.
Weird Science!
posted by Major Matt Mason Dixon at 8:44 AM on November 20, 2015

All Songs Considered for music, Headphone Commute if you think you might like ambient and minimalist stuff.
posted by fmnr at 9:07 AM on November 20, 2015

Another Mother Runner has a great podcast that might be right up your alley.
posted by bq at 9:25 AM on November 20, 2015

The various music streaming services can take the music you love and recommend other songs you might like. Many of them have free tiers that include some ads. This recent thread about Rdio shutting down includes some discussion of the other services.
posted by soelo at 9:40 AM on November 20, 2015

Stuff You Missed in History Class and Backstory are both in my regular rotation.

I am in London for a trip, and I've been going through the History of the World in 100 Objects series that the British Museum did a few years ago. They're really nicely done, and each one is about 14 minutes, so you can get a really interesting range of topics in an hour. (Stuff from experts in the objects, but also "Here's a person in a related modern field talking about this thing!")
posted by modernhypatia at 9:41 AM on November 20, 2015

For history, I'd toss out a recommendation for In Our Time. And though it's focused on design, there's a lot of history on 99% Invisible.
posted by straw at 9:49 AM on November 20, 2015

Not directly on point, but since we seem to have similar taste, here's what I love listening to: The Moth Radio Hour [hilarious, tragic, bizarre true stories].
posted by semacd at 11:30 AM on November 20, 2015

It's not history exactly, but I learn a lot from the (extremely well-produced) 99 Percent Invisible.
posted by radioamy at 1:17 PM on November 20, 2015

anything even a little bit like Hardcore History will be a hit.

Check out History on Fire by Daniele Bernini, a podcast on "where history and epic collide." His first two episodes cover Roman slave revolts, with Spartacus alone getting a full hour. The sound quality is a bit rough in the first episode, but it improves in the second.

That's the only Carlinesque podcast in my lineup, but there are a few others that are worthwhile:

Talking History: Italian Unification - Has actually turned into a fascinating history of Europe from the Renaissance to the Revolutionary era. There are long sections on the history of Venice and on the Napoleonic wars.

History of the Crusades is perfect if you want high adventure, epic tragedy, crimes against humanity (on all sides), & heroes and heroines and larger-than-life characters. I went in thinking that the Crusades were a simple east-vs-west story, but they were so much more complex than that.

Rex Factor presents the history of the kings and queens of England like it's a contest, where they score each monarch in terms of score their performance in "Battleyness, Scandal, Subjectivity, Longevity and Dynasty." It's irreverent and hella fun.

and ditto to The Allusionist, The Memory Palace, and You Must Remember This. I think I heard about all of these on Metafilter, and all were excellent suggestions.
posted by kanewai at 6:51 PM on November 20, 2015

I love Rich Roll's podcasts. Rich is a vegan athlete (he wrote a book about his change from addict to athlete called Finding Ultra). He interviews a lot of athletes and people interested in plant-based eating. There's not as much on yoga specifically, but there's quite a bit on meditation. Occasionally his wife Julie Piatt participates. She's a little too woo for me, and I skip the episodes where she's the only guest.
posted by FencingGal at 9:17 AM on November 21, 2015

I love a lot of these that others have listed, so here's what I can add -

The History of Rome, which is finished now but a very good listen and by the same person who does Revolutions.

The Ancient World, which I had thought was finished and now that I'm googling it I am delighted to find that I'm wrong.

I'll second 99% Invisible and Stuff You Missed in History Class.
posted by bile and syntax at 10:09 AM on November 21, 2015

Nthing You Must Remember This, Stuff You Missed in History Class and Damn Interesting. So glad to see a rec for Damn Interesting because it's great and I don't think that many people know about it. There was a post on the blue about it some months back linking to this episode and I've been in love ever since.
posted by kassila at 8:55 PM on November 21, 2015