I got a text today from a student on a road trip out west with some of his friends:

“EJ! Currently on a road trip across the US and wanted to know if you had any podcast suggestions while we are driving!”

I get this kind of request for podcast recommendations regularly.

I sent him these three podcast episodes:

Malcom Gladwell’s Revisionist History – The Big Man Can’t Shoot

The Art of Manliness – Becoming a Digital Minimalist

The Knowledge Project with Shane Parrish – The Angel Philosopher

Gladwell’s podcast is excellent throughout—provocative and compellingly counterintuitive. But that episode about free-throw shooting in basketball is the one that first got me hooked.

The Art of Manliness’s interview with the author Cal Newport is a solid introduction to his call for culling out the digital distractions currently overwhelming most of us.

And Shane Parrish’s interview with Naval Ravikant is full of nuggets of deep wisdom and practical life advice.

My podcast listening usually takes place while I’m driving or while walking my dog. I just don’t listen to the radio unless my kids take over in the car. Dad problems.

(Lately, though, podcasts have been shelved while I’ve listened to the audiobook versions of Robert Caro’s third and fourth volumes on LBJ: Master of the Senate and The Passage of Power. I’ve never read/listened to any book quite like these. This is the pinnacle of biography, at least from what I’ve read. The level of detail is extraordinary, but it’s not at the expense of truly riveting storytelling. Highly recommend.)