Each month, Podcast Review’s staff offers recommendations on the best new shows to listen to. Here are our favorite podcasts for July.
Wellness is everywhere — across social media, at the gym, on supermarket shelves. But while wellness has become ubiquitous, it has also garnered a significant amount of criticism for its links to conspiracy theories and orthorexic behaviors. The Lodge is a podcast that explores the darker side of wellness. It tells the story of a sanctuary for healing set against a beautiful New Zealand’s location. Despite its promising start, this place became the scene of a terrible tragedy. Hosted by award-winning RNZ journalist Phil Vine, The Lodge reopens the file on the cult that operated this sanctuary in the 1960s, led by guru Aiping Wang.
Wang promised her followers supernatural powers, lies that started a global empire of so-called energy healing clinics and had a horrific impact on those involved.
When we first listened to The Girlfriends, a true crime podcast from Novel, we were struck by the Nora Ephron-style storytelling and stylish production. Now the hit series returns with season 3, “Jailhouse Lawyer,” a challenging story about the thin line between victim and perpetrator.
Host and editor Anna Sinfield and producer Leigh Meyer tell the story of Kelly Harnett, a domestic abuse survivor convicted in 2010 of a murder she says she did not commit. The trailer for the new series just dropped, with the first episodes dropping Monday, July 14th.
Senseless with Erika Mahoney is a Lemonada true crime podcast about a very personal story: Erika’s mom, on an ordinary morning, called her daughter to say there was an active shooter at the grocery store nearby. In just a few seconds, ten people were killed, including Erika’s father.
Against the background of the trial of her father’s shooter, Erika talks to survivors of mass shootings, community leaders, and others affected directly by the tragedy in Boulder to process what happened to her family and understand why this kind of violence happens in the first place. Senseless is an ambitious project and an essential listen for anyone of voting age.
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Alice Florence Orr is a staff writer and managing editor for Podcast Review. She is a writer and freelance media strategist.