Noteworthy Podcasts

A few people have asked lately which podcasts I like to listen to. Here are my three favorites.

Discussions by Patrick Dodson (new podcasts every so often) – Patrick lives in New Zealand and works with YWAM. He speaks all over the world, mostly to twentysomething Christians trying to figure out what to do with their lives, and records his presentations for your listening pleasure. His views have influenced mine more than any other single person over the last three years. I recommend starting with his most recent series on Identity. On iTunes.

The Monocle Weekly (as implied, new show every week) – This is the best executed audio show I’ve heard. I’ve been listening to Tyler, Andrew, and Rob talk about global news and culture for the last three years, since I began listening to podcasts. Most of their guests are interesting, and most of their topics are right up my alley. I think my favorite thing about the show (and the magazine) is its global focus. I intend to shamelessly imitate The Monocle Weekly when I start the new OCSPLORA podcast next year. (P.s., I don’t like the show as much since they started M24 and stretched it to fit a two hour time slot. Still worth listening to, though.) On iTunes.

On Point with Tom Ashbrook (two shows a day, every weekday) – Tom Ashbrook is one of my heroes. I had already been listening to WBUR, Boston’s local NPR station, for a while when I finally tuned in for the first time between ten and noon and heard Tom interviewing some really interesting guest about some really interesting topic, then taking calls from listeners to expand the conversation. It’s a two-hour show if you are listening on the radio, but it is broken up into one hour segments, each focusing on a person or topic, and that is how you will get it from iTunes – as a one hour, one topic show. Tom focuses on world news, technology, Asia (he used to be based in Hong Kong as a journalist), and cultural icons – mostly authors and musicians. (P.s. again, On Point has the best intro and outro theme music ever.) On iTunes.

Bonus: I also subscribe to the TED Talks audio podcast. I don’t listen to every single talk, but I catch quite a few of them. Fantastic. If you don’t know what TED Talks are, you gotta go check out TED.com.