Abby Epplett, Historian

I am a longtime listener to the podcast Lingthusiasm recorded by linguists Gretchen McCulloch and Lauren Gawne . I had first learned about this podcast while watching “Tom’s Language Files” , a miniseries created by educational YouTuber Tom Scott . The title of the podcast is a portmanteau of “linguistics” and “enthusiasm”, and its tagline is “A podcast that’s enthusiastic about linguistics”. For me, it is nice to experience a show so focused in its purpose and habitual in releasing new episodes, as a new thirty-minute conversation comes out every third Thursday of the month. Gretchen and Lauren provide straightforward explanations of complex concepts in a way that makes the listener feel intelligent and never overwhelmed. Besides singing them praises, I will discuss several of their over one hundred episodes that I found most interesting.

I began listening to the podcast series Articles of Interest back in 2018 when it was a mini-series within the award-winning podcast 99% Invisible hosted by Roman Mars . Hosted by Avery Trufelman, this spin-off focuses on the history of Western fashion and subcultures. After four seasons — two episodic seasons with 99% Invisible , an independent serialized season, and an independent episodic season — the podcast is on hiatus as Trufelman writes a book, making this the perfect time for a review.

Look who’s back after the holiday break! For the new year, I am changing my posting schedule to include reviews of the podcasts, books, documentaries, and more that I absorb in preparation for my travels and essays. This style of post will typically appear on Mondays when I am not posting a blog roundup to LinkedIn. My first review of 2025 is on the episodic podcast Mobitituaries hosted by Mo Rocca . Rocca is a humorous correspondent for CBS Sunday Morning who got his start in television as a writer on the PBS children’s show Wishbone , which received its own episode . During each episode, he speaks with experts to uncover the story of a forgotten person, thing, or idea mostly in modern American history, although a few episodes cover Europe and East Asia, and one episode focused on prehistory. Topics might be serious, such as overturning bans on interracial marriage in the United States , but they are equally likely to be frivolous, like the cancellation of the Lawrence W...

Anyone who enjoys the American version of the appraisal show Antiques Roadshow , which just finished its 27 th season on GBH Boston (PBS) and shows no signs of slowing down, will love the podcast companion Detours . Started in January 2020, the podcast is now in its third season. Adam Monahan , who has served as a longtime producer of Antiques Roadshow , hosts the podcast. Frequent guest appearances include executive producer Marsha Bemko , appraisers and antiques experts, and former guests from Antiques Roadshow . I have so many favorite episodes from this podcast that I cannot describe all of them! Some of the best include Season 3, Episode 6, “Good Grief” about a Charles Schulz comic strip collection related to a Hallmark greeting cards licensing deal; Season 2, Episode 8, “If It’s Brown, It’s Down” about the downturn of the early American furniture market; and Season 1, Episode 2 “A Soldier for Sale” about a prop from the Laurel & Hardy movie Babes in Toyland ...

I am a longtime listener to Cautionary Tales , a podcast hosted by Tim Harford and published by Pushkin Industries with the tagline “telling true stories about mistakes and what we should learn from them”. Harford is a multi-talented communicator, blending history and statistics to publish books, host radio shows, and write newspaper articles along with hosting this podcast. His ability to balance the often dark cautionary tales with a sense of humor brings witty charm to each episode. The show is currently in its third season, having debuted back in November 2019. The show follows two standard formats. In the more common format, Harford introduces a main story taken from history and then relates the problems in the historical event to modern issues, often using statistics to compare the two stories. Actors such as Jeffrey Wright and Helena Bonham Carter read letters or newspaper articles from the time period. In the less common format, Harford interviews an expert on a t...