Picks of the week
Build the Life You Want
Widely available, episodes weekly
This spin-off from the staggeringly successful Super Soul podcast is packed with Oprah magic and tips on how to live better. Even if good deeds and mindfulness make you want to regurgitate your couscous, it’s hard to resist Winfrey. First, she looks at the ingredients of a happy existence with simple but irresistible mantras such as “social media is the junk food of social life” and “happiness is not a destination, it’s a direction.” Hannah Verdier
Joe Lycett’s Turdcast
Widely available, episodes weekly
David Beckham, Liz Truss: no one is safe from Joe Lycett’s attention. But now the “incredibly rightwing” comedian is turning his comedy hand to poo, with a podcast featuring celebrities telling their toilet stories. First up is Gary Lineker, who inevitably must relive his on-pitch poo at the 1990 World Cup. HV
Heirs of Enslavement
Widely available, episodes weekly
Clive Lewis MP’s ancestors were enslaved and former BBC journalist Laura Trevelyan’s were enslavers – and both want to confront the past. This podcast sees them travel to Grenada to meet Lewis’s dad and historian Nicole Phillip-Dowe, who helped Trevelyan’s family draft an apology to the country. Plenty of thought-provoking discussions follow. HV
Third Eye
Audible, all episodes out now
Laughs aren’t usually common in sci-fi fantasy podcasts, but Felicia Day’s story of an ordinary girl who’s destined to fight evil is full of them. Neil Gaiman is the enthusiastic narrator and Day is the blundering chosen one in a world full of human normies, selfie-seeking superhero fans and mind-wiping tricks. HV
The Oatly Chronicles
Widely available, all episodes out now
Prepare for some hard truths in this three-part investigation into whether oat milk – specifically, the choice of every hipster for their flat white, Oatly – really is better for the planet. There has been much scrutiny over the Swedish brand, starting with the claim that it needs to grow into a massive corporate success in order to properly defeat the big dairy industry. Hollie Richardson
There’s a podcast for that
This week, Nicole Jackson, head of audio at the Guardian, chooses five of the best Today in Focus podcasts, from an investigation into royal finances to one Ukrainian soldier’s extraordinary story
Human catastrophe unfolds in Israel and Gaza
Host Michael Safi talks to Sharone Lifschitzrom whose parents were kidnapped on 7 October and Hazem Balousha, a freelance journalist in Gaza City, about the increasingly desperate situation that residents are experiencing. An incredibly moving episode.
The Cost of the Crown – valuing the royal family
This series was part of a major Guardian investigation into the royal family and led to King Charles’s first signal for support of research into his family’s historic ties to transatlantic slavery
The volunteer fighter: ‘Life will never be the same’
This interview with 22-year-old Volodymyr Ksienich really captured the horror of the Russian invasion on ordinary Ukrainian civilians. Once an NGO worker, Ksienich was now learning to use a rifle and spending his nights in the woods preparing to repel a Russian attack.
On the frontline of the cost of living crisis
Host Nosheen Iqbal has a raw conversation with Amie Jordan, a single mother, about the reality of the cost of living crisis. The conversation led to an outpouring of sympathy for Jordan and donations from listeners.
The Pegasus project part 1: an invitation to Paris
The first of an ambitious five-part Guardian investigation that took listeners into the shadowy world of a powerful phone hacking tool being used by governments around the world.
Why not try …
From ghostly phantoms to vengeful poltergeists, a series of paranormal encounters in Uncanny.
In Have a Nice Future, Wired’s Gideon Lichfield and Lauren Goode speak with top technologists, thinkers and creators.
Investigative reporter Paul Caruana Galizia returns to report the story of the foiled assassination attempts on British soil of Iranian nationals in Londongrad: Iran’s Hit Squads.
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