Because I am a consumer of book-related podcasts, I think that every so often I should do the dedicated readers of this column the favor of sharing some of my favorites.
But I don’t want to hit the same topics too regularly, so I try to wait a decent interval between dispatches from book podcast listening world.
I think I’ve waited a little too long. It’s been seven years since my last column on book podcasts. Some of the podcasts I’ve previously recommended no longer produce new episodes, including “Bookworm,” hosted by the incomparable Michael Silverblatt. Silverblatt specialized in describing a book to the book’s author with such acuity that the author was stunned into silence. Check out the episode of Silverblatt interviewing David Foster Wallace about “Infinite Jest” for an object example.
New episodes hosted by Silverblatt haven’t been produced since 2022. Fortunately, thousands of Silverblatt’s author conversations remain available in the archives, and they are as fresh as the day they were recorded.
A number of my favorites do keep chugging away, including “Otherppl with Brad Listi.” Listi is the Marc Maron of author interviews, a comfortable interlocutor who takes conversations to unexpected places.
There’s also new podcasts coming all the time. I sample a lot of these, but only some manage to stick with me. These are some shows that have hit my regular rotation in the last year or so.
“If Books Could Kill”: Hosted by Michael Hobbes and Peter Shamshiri, this podcast takes aim at some of the very popular, big ideas books that inject very sticky concepts in the world, but which may also not be wholly on the up-and-up when it comes to the quality or carefulness of the research. I am a willing audience for this show, having long believed that books like “Freakonomics” or Malcolm Gladwell’s “Outliers” have done real damage to public discourse by championing oversimplified ways of looking at social issues. Others may recoil as their sacred cows are gored, but there’s nothing to say that you must agree with a podcast to enjoy it.
“Know Your Enemy”: This is not strictly a books podcast — hosts Sam Adler-Bell and Matthew Sitman are primarily critical observers of the long arc of conservative political movements — but they frequently center their episodes on single books or authors, bringing both great depth and range to the discussions. It’s like sitting in on a seminar co-taught by best buddies with shared fascinations and great enthusiasm for the subject at hand. Recent episodes with Vinson Cunningham in which they discussed his novel, “Great Expectations,” and John Ganz, author of “When the Clock Broke: Con Men, Conspiracists, and How America Cracked Up in the Early 1990s,” opened me up to new ways of looking at two books I thought I already well understood.
“Reckon True Stories”: When I heard there was going to be a new podcast hosted by Deesha Philyaw (“The Secret Lives of Church Ladies”) and Kiese Laymon (“Heavy” and “Long Division”), I was very excited. Listening to the first handful of episodes, my faith was well-placed. The chemistry between the two is apparent from the beginning, and they both have fantastic, contagious laughs that they unleash with some frequency thanks to that mutual comfort. But there’s also plenty of substance as they interview authors (Alexander Chee, Hanif Abdurraqib and others) or simply turn their attention to a single piece of work, like Toni Morrison’s classic essay, “The Work You Do, The Person You Are.”
I’m always looking for recommendations. If you have a favorite book podcast, send me a message. My email is at the bottom.
John Warner is the author of “Why They Can’t Write: Killing the Five-Paragraph Essay and Other Necessities.”
Book recommendations from the Biblioracle
John Warner tells you what to read based on the last five books you’ve read.
1. “The Face of a Stranger” by Anne Perry
2. “Go Set a Watchman” by Harper Lee
3. “Where the Crawdads Sing” by Delia Owens
4. “The Maltese Falcon” by Dashiell Hammett
5. “The Thin Man” by Dashiell Hammett
— Rosalie H., Chicago
For Rosalie, I’m recommending a contemporary heir to a writer like Dashiell Hammett who maintains the tension, but also works with current themes: Laura Lippman and “Lady of the Lake.”
1. “Dark Places” by Gillian Flynn
2. “The Silent Patient” by Alex Michaelides
3. “The Song of Achilles” by Madeline Miller
4. “Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince” by J.K. Rowling
5. “The 7 1/2 Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle” by Stuart Turton
— Marta H., Chicago
This recommendation is a little slantwise from Marta’s list, but I think it might be a home run, particularly because it’s part of a series, “The Eyre Affair” by Jasper Fforde.
1. “The Forest of Vanishing Stars” by Kristin Harmel
2. “Counterfeit” by Kirstin Chen
3. “Mrs. Palfrey at the Claremont” by Elizabeth Taylor
4. “The Latecomer” by Jean Hanff Korelitz
5. “Alice, Let’s Eat: Further Adventures of a Happy Eater” By Calvin Trillin
— Beverly W., Champaign
I think Beverly is a good candidate for the warmth and weirdness of Patrick deWitt’s “The Librarianist.”
Get a reading from the Biblioracle
Send a list of the last five books you’ve read and your hometown to biblioracle@gmail.com.
