Now that podcasts get Golden Globes, here’s a few actually worth a listen

“Good Hang with Amy Poehler” won the inaugural podcast prize at the 83rd annual Golden Globes ceremony.

Carol J. Bream

Night Vision

So, the Golden Globes now honour podcasts. According to PodStatistics.com, over 4.5 million podcasts air worldwide and are listened to and viewed by over 584 million people. Some of them even make money, apparently, as the global market is said to be some US $39.63 billion (with a “B”) and growing rapidly.

Like many people, I listen on my iPhone, usually while walking outside or on a treadmill. I’m among the older demographic, but people of all ages seem to be hooked on podcasts.

The choice of nominees at the Golden Globes intrigued me, as I had only listened to Amy Poehler’s, “Good Hang with Amy Poehler,” but all six are on several lists of high-ranking pods. I loved Amy’s sarcasm during her acceptance speech when speaking of NPR’s “Up First” – “just a bunch of celebrities phonin’ it in.” Hardly (as compared to many others).

My choices tend to be on the intellectual side (I love learning stuff, I guess), so here’s what this news junkie and inveterate podcast listener goes for:

• As a word and grammar nerd, I love “Grammar Girl.” Not everyone’s cuppa tea, of course — but everyone should know the difference between “bring” and “take”;

• Anything at all by Michael Lewis. His “Against the Rules” seasons are superb. Known for Liar’s Poker, Moneyball, The Big Short and Going Infinite (about Sam Bankman-Fried and FTX), and several other best-sellers, Lewis explores in depth issues affecting finance, life and politics in the US. I highly recommend Season 5 on sports gambling, a 21^st century affliction that is sadly decimating the lives of many who partake in it;

  
  

• The Freakonomics duo of University of Chicago economist Steven Levitt and journalist Stephen J. Dubner, whose 2005 book was a best-selling sensation that surprised even them, started a podcast series. (Their books have many critics, of course.) Their key podcasts “People I Mostly Admire” and “Freakonomics Radio” are high on my list. Levitt interviews the most fascinating people, including Nobel Prize winners Daniel Kahneman (economics) and Richard Feynman (physics), John Green, author of the literary and film sensation The Fault in our Stars and a new book on the scourge of TB, and Suleika Jaouad (Between Two Kingdoms, a touching memoir) among so many others over 173 episodes (now the last as he moves onto other ventures, but the full archive is available). Dubner’s recent series on Handel’s Messiah (“The Greatest Piece of Participatory Art Ever Created”) stuck a deep chord with me, a college music history major and former choir and orchestra member;

• Random raves about other podcasts I listen to regularly: political streams “Pod Save America,” “Pod Save the World” and “Strict Scrutiny” (about the US Supreme Court and related issues) from the Crooked Media gang; everyday explorer Shankar Vedantam’s “Hidden Brain”; NYT’s amazingly topic interview podcast “The Ezra Klein Show”; health program “Chasing Life,” with CNN’s Dr. Sanjay Gupta (“White Coat, Black Art” on CBC is another medical one I enjoy); and last but not least, financial analysis and advice “Prof G Markets,” with expert guests who enlighten me daily, and “The Prof G Pod,” both of these started/hosted by academic, author and entrepreneur Scott Galloway. His recent best-seller “Notes on Being A Man” has seen him do interviews on many TV shows and podcasts, including on CBC’s “The Current,” and “Science with Dr. Karl” from the Australian Broadcasting Corporation.

  
  

One final thing, and it may shock you: I don’t pay for any podcasts. Why would I when I’m already shelling out for innumerable TV channels and newspaper subscriptions? My bias in choosing what to listen to is easy to discern, but perhaps my somewhat eclectic and highly personal suggestions may encourage readers to explore more than the usual suspects on their favourite pod app.

Carol J. Bream is a writer living in Gatineau.