Podcasts I've Listened To and Liked Lately: Postmodern Fiction, Plot Summaries, and Serial Documentaries

 

OMG that llama puzzle. I was sooo excited when I found it at the thrift store, because Will is visiting Peru this summer and also loves llamas.

But see how the llamas are assembled, and the edges, and then there's just... empty space? Yeah, those spaces are green. Just green. Green in subtle different shades, sure, but mostly just green. This is the WORST puzzle. We all absolutely loathe it. After this, I am putting a temporary ban on puzzles that are over 300 pieces until I can forget the misery of literally holding every single puzzle piece to every single empty spot because that is the absolute only way to find its match.

BUT sitting together at that table, putting together a puzzle or working crosswords or coloring, is what Will and I do while listening to Welcome to Night Vale, our collective favorite podcast:

I am a HUGE fan of serialized horror podcasts, and I have several favorites that I've listened to the entire run of:

Here are the ones that I've also introduced to the kids, and that we listen to together:

You've got to start each of these from the first episode, and they're very bingeable, because there's always a story arc and an overarching mystery and often details that don't seem relevant but turn out to BE, in fact, relevant! Seriously, I think the kids and I listened to, like, eight Magnus Archives in a row on that long drive home from Michigan last month. My favorite favorites are all postmodern fiction pieces that incorporate elements of pseudo-science/pseudo-history or paranoid fiction that incorporates that same kind of pseudo-knowledge of the world.

So that's what I've been listening to when I really want to LISTEN to something. I also have a whole genre of podcasts that I listen to at times when I want to listen to something, but I don't want to expend absolutely any intellectual labor on the listening. This is usually while I'm gardening or walking, times when I might want to get lost in my thoughts for a few minutes and then zone back in without feeling like I've got to rewind. For those times, I really like a few podcasts in which the hosts talk through the plot of movies or a book series, with commentary OF COURSE. Every now and then I'll try a new one, but these are the ones that I'm devoutly faithful to:

Here are a couple more where I like the hosts a lot, but I pick and choose only the episodes that interest me:

Two recent episodes of Celebrity Memoir Book Club that I really liked are the one on the Jamie Spears memoir and the one on the Naya Rivera memoir. Those are good examples of their podcast, because they HATED the Jamie Spears memoir (for lots of very good reasons!) and loved the Naya River memoir (for lots of very good reasons!). 

This is the only one that the kids like, too, if I pick a good episode:

We listened to the Hereditary episode all together on a road trip one time, and we were basically all freaking out simultaneously. It's so good!

Y'all know how I'm obsessed with people dying or going missing in national parks? I LOVE this podcast:

I love what a deep dive the hosts go into in every episode. Sometimes, information is discovered about a missing person or their remains are found, and the hosts will do an update episode. 

When I'm doing handwork, sewing or crafting orders for my Pumpkin+Bear etsy shop, I like to listen to something a little more engaging. I really like long-form serial documentaries, although I feel like I must be super picky about them, because good ones are so hard to find! Here are my favorites:

I just realized that Stolen has a new season out, which is awesome, because I loved their first season, The Search for Jermaine. Now I've got something to listen to when I sew the car play mat that I've been thinking about making for my niece's upcoming birthday!