PODCASTS — LISTEN AT YOUR LEISURE

My Favorite Murder

www.feralaudio.com/show/my-favorite-murder True crime is fertile ground for podcasts, which benefit from the slow, steady, rather Columbo-style nature of their explorations — see Serial, obviously, and Criminal, and many more. My Favorite

Murder, hosted by comedians Georgia Hardstark and Karen Kilgariff, manages to be a little bit different, because they are less concerned with investigating crimes than they are with simply examining and de-constructing them.

This was the big podcast hit of last summer, and a few listens will show you why. The pair share what is probably a morbid fascination with murder, but are also decently, and respectfully, terrified of it.

Georgia is open about her anxiety, and explains that the podcast helps to ease it — when it doesn’t exacerbate it. Together they discuss and explore a particular murder in each episode, with humour, yes, but also sympathy and occasionally perfectly genuine outrage.

Originally, the shows were themed around a particular topic — revenge, cannibalism, unsolved — but tend now to be more free-form, and are frequently recorded on the road, in front of live audiences, which adds greatly to the dynamic.

Talking Books

www.newstalk.com/podcasts/Talking_Books Presented by Susan Cahill and broadcast on Sundays from 8-9pm, this is a relaxed, unhurried show devoted to books and writers. Episodes tend to concentrate on a particular theme or question — Who Was The real Angela Carter? Is God Dead In The West? and the intriguing Can Adultery Be A Sign Of True Love? — but livened up with reviews, a weekly book club and a book of the week. Susan invites authors and thinkers to join her and read from their work or discuss the topic of the hour.