Four great pods to get you started

If you haven’t listened to a podcast before, the scale of available ‘‘pods’’ can be daunting. Where do I find the best ones? Which one should I listen to? How do you tell the difference between a good or a bad one? Are they all made in someone’s garage?

Thankfully, the latter is no longer true. Podcasts are now beautifully crafted pieces of storytelling, with Mad Men-level production values.

If you’re just getting started, I’d recommend listening to some quality pod pioneers first.

So get your phone or electronic device, download Stitcher or the iPhone podcast app and discover the whole new, wonderful world of non-screen

entertainment that awaits you.

RadioLab is an enthralling, award-winning pod ‘‘devoted to investigating’’ the strange world in which we live. Presenter Jad Abumrad’s American radio show of the same name was an early adopter of the podcast format. His scientific and philosophical stories cover everything from ant colonies to genetics and gender, and whether technology is making us more or less human. Highlight recordings feature late science writer Oliver Sacks, and Patient Zero, which traces epidemics to their human source.

This American Life radioshow-turned pod explores a different theme, guided by master storyteller Ira Glass. This hugely popular pod is downloaded an average of 2.5 million times a week.

Roman Mars, a founding member of the podcast movement, presents 99% Invisible.

In this pod, Mars looks at how design and the unnoticed objects around us shape our world. There’s a great archive of past podcasts, but I would recommend starting with Holdout, The Shipping Forecast and Mojave Phone Booth.

For a hair-raising, allconsuming introduction to pods, nothing beats S-Town. The record-breaking 2017 series starts as a murder-mystery but you will end up deep inside the intriguing, disturbing world of leading man John B McLemore from Woodstock Alabama.