Strong Buy: Slate Podcasts

Say you're a multi-doctorate cancer cure researcher who splits their time between seventy hour work weeks and a loving spouse and six intoxicatingly cute offspring. You, of course, have no time for the trivial likes of culture, books, politics, and sports, but are still a curious individual. You do, however have a thirty minute commute, which is more than enough mileage to gobble up these weekly podcasts that will give you everything you could ever want in a summary/semi in-depth discussion of those areas.

The Culture Gabfest is just knock-down drag out awesome in the way it makes everything from Taylor Swift and Lady Gaga to the New Yorker article on Van Gogh and the filmography of Eric Rohmer insanely intriguing. Next in my heart is the Audio Book Club; where they mostly cover books that I'll never get to, but the gabbers analysis of them sounds amazing. You would think three Eastern corridor liberals shooting politics would be bland, but instead it's always engaging. Slate even makes sports talk erudite and insightful; supplying you with more than enough ammo to battle the omnipresent ESPN drones on their own ground. Every week I'm in awe of their facility with the English language and ability to pique and satisfy my interest. I'm not a big reader of Slate.com but I'm completely in the sway of their podcasts, and probably couldn't recommend anything more fully.