Each month, Podcast Review’s staff offers recommendations on the best new shows to listen to. Here are our favorite podcasts for February.
You may recognize the voice of Helena de Groot from high culture podcasts like The Paris Review Podcast and Poetry Off the Shelf. But in her latest project for CBC’s ‘Personally,’ Creation Myth, De Groot turns the lens on her own life. She did not want kids, but her husband believed she would change her mind. When De Groot did not waver, her husband left. Did she make the right decision?
De Groot’s vacillation is familiar. As a woman nearing thirty, my social feeds are a relentless stream of peers weighing the prospect of motherhood. Between economic instability and personal autonomy, the reasons to defer or decline are many — and all are legitimate.
In Creation Myth, De Groot looks back from her forties, wondering if the hesitation was actually a mistake. What is the true purpose of a life? “Center your pleasure,” one friend advises. “Seek adventure,” suggests another. But is parenthood not the greatest adventure of all?
Ultimately, the only voice De Groot needs to find is her own. Listen to the first episode on February 10.
To celebrate Black History Month, the award-winning podcast Our Ancestors Were Messy has released a two-part special on Eslanda and Paul Robeson set against the captivating backdrop of the Harlem Renaissance. The twenties were a time of incredible art, innovation, and social inequality. Despite gains, Black people still suffered under Jim Crow in the United States, while over in Europe, fascism is on the rise and the Serfs have gone free.
The love story of the Robesons is elegantly told by Nicole Hill, and encompasses the dual passions of the pair: acting and activism. With intoxicating music and engaging storytelling, it’s easy to fall for this couple. If you’ve never listened to Our Ancestors Were Messy, let this special serve as an access point to this seriously underrated history podcast.
There is no shortage of history podcasts. Then again, there also seems no shortage of demand. History for the Reckoning, a new podcast about uncomfortable history, will be controversial for some. The show explores the stories that contain valuable lessons, in the hope that they’ll never be repeated. It’s an ambitious aim, and will appeal to fans of You’re Wrong About and Journey Through Time.
Each season of History for the Reckoning will dig into a history that has been “misremembered,” whether by accident or through deliberate censure. By way of interviews with historians, scholars, artists, and people who lived the history firsthand, the show will serve as a “deeper dive” into these events that are vital to our navigation of the present. Listen to the first episode on February 19.