Podcast Roundup July 2026

I'm in an audiobook rut, so it's been all podcasts all the time. 

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I know comedian Joanne McNally because she was a contestant on Taskmaster. When I heard she had a podcast called Joanne McNally Investigates, I was fully onboard. There are two seasons, "Who Replaced Avril Lavigne?" and "Did Furbys Spy on Us?" and they were both utterly charming. In the same way I enjoyed Did Titanic Sink? and Who Shat on the Floor at My Wedding?, I enjoyed this. Is there a sort of mystery involved? Sure, but it's really a comedy. 

In a radically different type of podcast, have you heard KCRW podcast called City of Tents: Veterans Row? In the middle of one of LA's fanciest neighborhoods, there's a pocket of land that has been donated to the care and housing of America's veterans. The Veterans Administration controls access to this campus and many veterans who are facing mental health, housing, and/or substance use challenges cannot live up to the rules. So what did they do? They set up a tent city right outside the gates of the campus. What happens next is relatively predictable - denial, removal, criminality, NIBMYism, and not a lot of answers. But when the people who are unhoused are veterans, it's not as easy as just rousting them off to Seattle.

Texas Monthly just finished up a seven-part series called Where the River Took Us. Texas Monthly editor Aaron Parsley and his family were enjoying a long holiday at his family's vacation home along the Guadalupe River when there was a terrible thunderstorm overnight and the river rose rapidly. The floods in Central Texas led to trauma, death, and hardship, but also community, growth, and new beginnings. This podcast varied in quality from episode to episode, but I found the first two and the fifth as some of the most powerful podcast episodes I have ever listened to. There are some tough topics here, though, including child death, so take care of yourself. 

None of you have asked for it, but I want to draw your attention to some excellent recent Planet Money episodes. If you're not listening to PM, GO DO THAT RIGHT NOW.

"The real horror of ‘Alien’ and how it explains why we’re not paid enough" - The hosts use the word monopsony, discuss labor economics in the brilliant sci-fi movie Alien, and make you start side eyeing FAANG companies.

"Why is there a supplement craze if they don’t even work?" - As a lady who takes a fistful of supplements daily on the advice of medical doctors, I was super interested in this episode. Turns out supplements are not regulated very well (which I actually did know) and we are possibly/probably/maybe/probably not really getting poisoned by our supplements. HOW AM I SUPPOSED TO KNO WHAT TO DO?

"Can the Trump Administration Make College Cheaper?" - So under the Big Beautiful Bill (like...what the fuck world is this?), there were significant changes made to student loans. Because I work in higher ed, I am interested in what this will mean for my students. Answer: it's complicated. 

"Can World Cup Mania Grow MLS?" - Unpopular take: I think the World Cup goes on too long and is boring. But I did enjoy this episode about how Major League Soccer teams are trying to take advantage of the North American hosting gig to try to get more people to care about soccer. I, for one, will not be getting on this (boring) bandwagon. 

Hunting the Suicide Salesman from the CBC is gripping. Dude provides a poison to help people kill themselves and tells them how to do it. Has he committed a crime? I am all for assisted suicide and I thought this guy, while an absolute dick who is profiting from people at their lowest points, was getting unfairly maligned here. (I also take the unpopular opinion that Michelle Carter should not have been found guilty of manslaughter.)

But then I heard about Amazon selling the poison and how most people who survive suicide attempts regret it and...now I don't know. If the government wants this to be illegal, then it should be illegal, you know? Dr. BB and I had some interesting conversations about this one, but it does deal with tough issues, so be aware. 

The Last Twelve Weeks is the newest from Serial podcasting, co-produced with The Marshall Project. 

The good: Interesting topic. They follow around some lawyers as they try to get a stay of execution for a convicted serial murderer whose death date is in twelve weeks. The storytelling is interesting. I always wanted to keep playing the next episode. It's only five episodes, so it's not asking you to invest hours and hours of your life. The sound is great. (I'm currently trying to listen to a podcast where the sound quality is terrible uneven and listening to this was like a balm to my ears.)

The bad: There are multiple hosts, I think? But their voices are the same? It's a bit superficial because it was so short. I wanted more about the lawyers.

I recommend it, but it's not perfect. 

I sometimes listen to podcasts from other countries and am reminded of how weird the US is in so many ways. Hearing the folks from Today in Focus talk about the death penalty was a reminder that the US government kills its own citizens on a regular basis. And now "The return of the firing squad in Trump’s America" means that because pharmaceutical companies are refusing to allow their drugs to be used in lethal injections, some states are turning to the firing squad. 

Speaking of podcasts from other countries, I started listening to The Case Of from Australia when it was The Mushroom Case Daily and I've kept listening because the rules of reporting court cases in Australia sound batshit crazy to me in the United States. Instead of instructing jury members not to look stuff up or hear about the case they are involved with, Australia has crazy rules limiting what the press can actually report on. In the mushroom case, where a woman was accused of killing family members by feeding them death cap mushrooms, the press couldn't report on the fact that she'd already tried to kill her ex-husband before in case the jury couldn't hear it. So millions of people can't know what's going on to protect the handful of people on the jury? Instead of the other way? BATSHIT. 

Right now there's a case involving a "high-profile Queensland man" who is most certainly an Aussie politician and the way they have to report the case is so crazy that I don't even understand what's happening. There was extortion? Was the premier being extorted? Thank heavens for the redditor who posted "an unnamed prominent Queensland figure had an affair with a woman in 2017. Another man discovered evidence of this and attempted to extort the woman. The man who had the alleged affair (not the attempted extortionist) was identified as a big deal politician. The court will not name the man and the reason given is that this would potentially reveal the identity of the extortion victim."

But you know what? I keep listen to The Case Of because I'm enjoying them go around and around in circles because they can't name this guy. Or the woman. LOLOLOL. As an American, I cannot express how bonkers I think this whole thing is. He hasn't even been accused of a crime!

I'm not sure I really recommend this since the reporting on this case is hella confusing, but it's fun listening, that's for sure. 

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Okay, party people. What podcasts should I listen to next? My audiobook reading has slowed to a crawl and I'm finding all books terrible right now, so I need SOMETHING.