Issue #105: What to Listen to on Your Next Roadtrip, Walk, or Commute

58 of my favorite podcasts.

Morning Person is a weekly newsletter packed with obsessively-curated recommendations and ideas—let’s get to it!

📚 Deborah Levy’s Living Autobiography Series: I was halfway through Real Estate by the time I realized I was reading Levy’s trilogy entirely out of order. I began in the middle with The Cost of Living, in which Levy recounts the experience of leaving her husband and building a new life. Then Real Estate came to me during my own house buying process, followed finally by Things I Don’t Want to Know. Somehow, it still worked. The jumbled chronology mirrored my own jolting experience of divorce with it’s constant flashbacks and flash-forwards. Not only that, but I didn’t care—Levy’s observations on writing, her e-bike, and her imperfect apartment and writing shed are rich enough to live in, no matter the order.

💿 Morgan Wade’s ‘Psychopath:’ I fell hard for Wade’s achey, sexy debut country album ‘Reckless’ in 2021. I played the song “Wilder Days” on repeat, which felt like early Kacey Musgraves or Maren Morris. Her sophomore album ‘Psychopath’ leans a bit more pop rock, while maintaining her edge (think Julia Michaels or even ‘90s nd early aughts angst) which feels appropriate given her ode to Alanis Morrisette in “Alanis.” A good intro for anyone who’s on the fence about country music.

🎧 “Nothing is Real” Podcast: This Irish podcast dives into The Beatles’ canon on a microscopic level, examining songs, contextualizing the band’s complex and influential dive into spirituality, examining some of their most notorious concerts during their short-lived touring days, and making a convincing argument for why ‘Help!’ deserves more attention as an album. An admittedly niche rec but if you’re not a Beatles fanatic, I have plenty of recs below…

It’s easy to track my obsession with podcasts to the internship I had my senior year of college at a children’s book publisher. For two semesters, I stuffed thousands of publicity mailers while binge-listening to episodes of “This American Life.” The episodes kept me entertained and engaged, despite the repetitive task. Eventually, I added “Radiolab” to my rotation, swapped theories about Adnan Syed at my first job, and spent commutes wading through the celebrity interview, true crime, and round table political shows that cropped up in response to the growing demand.

Over the past few weeks, I’ve been listening to podcasts with the same fervor as those early days. Comedians kept me company during the long stretches of road on my drive to and from Reno and I binge-listened to countless shows while packing boxes and moving last week. Below are my 58 (!) favorite podcasts, by topic, and how I keep them all organized: