Fun Stuff
Podcasts
A walking tour: for interdisciplinary discussions of current books, go to
Start the Week, where every episode is a conversation with three contemporary authors or artists, then stroll on down to
In Our Time on the eggheaded, British side of the street across from the more populist New York-based
Radio Lab, both of which take up one subject for multidirectional investigation every show. (Radio Lab has a more focused approach to its subjects than, for instance, the more broadly thematic
This American Life, which remains delicious at its best.) Next turn the corner to subject-area podcasts: economics from the pesky and engaging libertarians at
EconTalk, applied statistics with Tim Harford on
More or Less, sociology from
Thinking Allowed. Then stumble into the
New Yorker Fiction show, with excellent discussions surrounding excellent stories, and Grinnell grad Sam Tanenhaus's
New York Times Book Review show before tumbling into news by way of
The Bugle's absurd Transatlanticism,
NewsHour, and
The New York Times's World View. Exhausted, collapse into Slate's
Daily Podcast, especially the political gabfest every Friday, and take it easy with your sports shows,
PTI and The Sports Guy's
B. S. Report.
Blogs
Rest up before you set off again: you limber up with the general-interest commentary of
The New York Review of Books,
TEDBlog, Grinnell alumnus
David Archer,
Jason Kottke, and
Malcolm Gladwell. Inspired by this breadth to use your time more efficiently, you hustle over to
43 Folders (a site inspired by David Allen's Getting Things Done) and
Lifehacker--and if you're of a certain life stage, you pop over to
Parent Hacks as well. All this mobility makes you think of sports, and you bend your steps to
Fire Joe Morgan and
Sabernomics, which gets you in the economic mood to carry on to the economical eclecticism of
Marginal Revolution. After pausing on a park bench to remember your school days through
The Quick and the Ed, you get fired up about education policy and leap up to inform yourself about politics by rushing to Nate Silver's
FiveThirtyEight.com and Josh Marshall's
Talking Points Memo. You want to head home, so
Steven Johnson helps you get local, and the settle down to pleasure your eyes with
Errol Morris and your ears with cousin Kim Simpson's
Boneyard Media.
