Whether you're a relative podcast newbie or you've been enjoying the listening and learning in audio form for many a year, there's always new, weird and wonderful podcasts to get your fix with.
There are some stalwarts though, the originals, the ones that everyone listens to. How many can you check off your list? Tweet us @TheDebrief with any we've missed!
1. The Moth
A total Debrief fave, this storytelling night has been going since the 90s. Now, with events taking place across the world, tune in once a week for their radio hour where they'll gift you with the best, funniest, most heartbreaking offerings from people around the world.
Get it here.
2. This American Life
Another long running staple of the podcast world. Hosted by Ira Glass, each week, they take a theme and bring you a whole bunch of different stories on that theme. Sometimes it's a full investigative journalistic piece, sometimes it's a short story. Sometimes it's a comedy performance and sometimes it's an amusing anecdote from a reader. Either way, they're never not interesting.
Get it here.
3. Invisibilia
From ex-Radiolab and ex-This American Life-rs Lulu Miller and Alex Spiegel, this similar-ish offshoot was always bound to be good. We're looking at the business end of season 2 at the moment but there's nothing to stop you from going back and listening to season 1 if you missed out. Last season's big hitter was about the batman - a deaf guy that had taught himself to 'see' using vocal clicking noises and his own version of sonar.
Get it here.
4. Stuff Mom Never Told You
From the absolutely giant How Stuff Works (see also Stuff You Should Know, Stuff You Missed In History Class, Stuff They Don't Want You To Know....) Stuff Mom Never Told You is a series of explainers on a veritable treasure trove of knowledge that every woman should have. Topics include the roles of prostitutes in wartime, why women are more likely to be anxious, dominatrixes and a history of women in coding.
Get it here.
5. Friday Night Comedy From BBC Radio 4
Depending on the season, each Friday night on Radio 4 is The News Quiz (marvellously helmed by Miles Jupp after the heartbreaking departure of Sandi Toksvig) and The Now Show (Hugh Dennis and Steve Punt). Both serve as a sort of The Daily Show/Have I Got News For You/John Oliver look at the week's news which means that even if you slept all week and didn't look at the news once (not advised) you can catch up before socialising at the weekend with one entertaining half hour podcast so you look well informed.
Get it here.
6. Desert Island Discs
It's pretty much the law that you listen to this podcast. Now helmed by Kirsty Young, their entire back catalogue is available for the listening online. People really like the Lily Allen one (suitably honest), Dawn French's, J.K. Rowling's (obvs) and, oddly, Jerry Springer's.
Get it here.
7. How Stuff Works
An explainer on just about everything and anything that you could ever want. From LSD to poo, deprogramming ex-cult members, landfills, water slides, left handers, boomerangs, panic attacks, each week, Josh and Chuck have covered just about every topic you could ever imagine.
Get it here.
8. Embedded
A new one from the NPR family but a soon to become huge, huge favourite, Embedded is similar to the serious journalism stories of This American Life. Each week, Kelly McEvers or one ofher team goes in deep to a particular news story. Like the time they spend in El Salvador, the murder capital of the world, meeting residents while gang leaders bring the city to a halt by killing any bus drivers that dare to operate.
Get it here.
9. Freakonomics
A podcast from the authors of the popular book series which made learning fun again. Each week Steve Levitt and Stephen J. Dubner cast their economist eyes over everything from drinking culture to online dating, app-based taxi services to smoking weighing up the arguments you might not have thought of.
Get it here.
10 . Serial Season 1
C'mon. You've already listened. If you haven't we can't help you.
Get it here.
11. Call Your Girlfriend
What to do if you're two best friends who live far, far away from each other? Make a podcast out of your phonecalls. Obvs. Each week, Ann Friedman and Aminatou Sow call each other up, press record and wax lyrical about about everything from something Kim Kardashian did to what the latest is in the American election. It's pretty much the same convos you have with your mates. But in podcast form.
Get it here.
12. Ctrl Alt Delete
Emma 'Ganners' Gannon is on a mission to find interesting and inspiring women to chat to her about what it's like to be them. From Dawn O' Porter to Cheryl Strayed, Zoella to XXX, Emma's got real women to tell their stories to make you feel better about everything.
Get it here.
13. Woman's Hour
Radio 4's long-running daily women's show is the stuff of excellence. Covering women's issues and featuring a range of excellent guest speakers daily, it's one to download in the morning and listen to on your way home.
Get it here.
14. Stuff You Missed In History Class
Super nerdy but super fun, this podcast pulls out lesser known events in history and reports on them. The presenters Holly Fry and Tracey V. Wilson are the kind of super warm, cool but nerdy friends you'd love to have a knitting circle with one day, or a book club, or some other wholesome activity that doesn't involve booze. They cover lesser known subjects like the time the US tried to start a hippo farm to solve their meat crisis and the Night Witches; the all female German flight crew from WWII. Their best episodes are the ones on shipwrecks which they've got loads of. Mainly because the listeners seem to keep requesting them.
Get it here.
15. Criminal
Easy-to-manage, non-sensationalist true crime epsiodes from the excellent Phoebe Judge. Give the blood and guts a miss and get a more thoughtful insight into crimes both heinous and minor (see: the episode about giving the finger) with interviews from the people that were there.
Get it here.
16. Radiolab
A science(ish) podcast along the same lines as This American Life. Jad Abumrad and Robert Krulwich pick apart pop culture, politics, even bacon. The one on K-Pop is a great place to start. Especially if you thought Beliebers were as bonkers as they came.
Get it here.
17. Sword & Scale
Presented by the almost worryingly measured-sounding Mike Boudet, this podcasts seeks to remind you that monsters really do walk among us and are much scarier than anything you could ever imagine. Each episode focusses on a different true crime cases and features interviews and recording from the crime itself. Recent topics include a man who murdered his wife and posted the pictures on Facebook and the tragic case of a child murdering another child in a playground for reasons you'll never believe. It's heavy hitting stuff if you're listening first thing in the morning.
Get it here.
18. Dan Carlin's Hardcore History
If a podcast that dedicates the better part of ten hours to the rise and rise of Genghis Khan and the Mongol Empire doesn't sound especially thrilling then you have yet to listen to Hardcore History. Dan Carlin, a former political commentor, researches his podcasts the way you researched that douchebag your ex started seeing; forensically and in depth. Don't be put off by the wordy descriptions and somewhat fantasy-novel-esque design though, each episode is curated in a way that means it'll have you hooked from the get-go. Perfect if you want to be that annoying friend who likes to add a dash of historical context to every group conversation.
Get it here.
19. Witness
For those people that feel like they missed the memo that everyone needed to know everything about every news story from the last century. Witness, from the BBC World Service, pulls together real BBC footage on different recent-history news stories to give you an overview of what went down. There's hundreds, literally hundreds and hundreds of epsiodes and they're all super short. Check out the recent 9 minute-r on the Challenger Disaster which includes an interview with Barbara Morgan, the woman that served as first-civillian-in-space Christa McAuliffe's back up.
Get it here.
20. 99% Invisible
Think the design world is just for your knobhead friends who work in loft-style offices and drink coffee in wood-panelled Shoreditch cafes? Think again, 99% Invisible teaches you all about the architecture and the design world by only focussing on the interesting bits. For instance, do you know about the cities in China that which are replicates of European cities? How about how bank structures contributed to bank robberies? Take notes and drop some of the facts you learn next time you find yourself in wanky company.
Get it here.
21. Strangers
Lea Thau is currently our secret crush. This Dutch native’s husky voice is calming in a way that only 2 valium and a glass of whiskey could be. Plus, she’s a BABE. Her podcast Strangers tells heartbreaking and wonderful stories about what can happen when we meet other people. The Long Shadow about a completely random and horrifying event that changed the lives of four friends forever had us sobbing in the gym like a total lunatic.
Get it here.
Like this? Then you might also be interested in:
The 7 Best Episodes Of The Moth Podcast To Make You Feel Good
Follow Jess on Twitter @Jess_Commons
This article originally appeared on The Debrief.