Each month, Podcast Review’s staff offers recommendations on the best new shows to listen to. Here are our favorite podcasts for September.
Raising Us: A Parenting Podcast
We’ve written about podcasts for kids, but our staff hasn’t yet rounded up the best shows for parents. One entry might be Raising Us, a new parenting podcast hosted by journalist and mom of three Elise Hu (TED Talks Daily, Forever35).
Parenting isn’t just about raising kids. It’s about raising adults to be better parents (and better people) in the process. Hu advises parents that kids are more resilient than they think, and that ultimately, parents need to toughen up. It’s the sort of real-world advice that rewrites the cultural narratives families pass down, reframing them with reporting, expert voices, and real-life stories. And don’t worry, everything is age appropriate and designed to spark positive conversations with your children. The first episode of Raising Us drops this month.
After eight seasons, Heavyweight ended abruptly at the end of 2023. Its demise was met with sadness, even disbelief. Another former Gimlet podcast down? Yes, and we should have expected it. Many great shows, especially those acquired by Spotify in the last five years, have been unexpectedly cancelled due to poor financial prioritization (read: they threw podcast money at celebrities and then laid off people to compensate). But Heavyweight felt different, like a whole podcasting genre was shuttering for good. Whimsical, sentimental, and production-intensive, narrative-based podcasts have been eclipsed by interview shows that are cheaper to produce and easier to monetize.
Earlier this year, we learned that Heavyweight would return under Pushkin and iHeartRadio. And after listening to a preview of a brand new episode (out September 18), I can assure all the fans of Jonathan Goldstein’s poignant storytelling that Season 9 lives up to expectations.
Heavyweight is a show all about missed opportunities and unspoken feelings. Goldstein helps guests return to a moment that changed their lives by contacting a person from their past. A lost love, an almost-friend, or an estranged family member. The show documents this present-day interaction, usually to heart-wrenching effect. In short, Heavyweight gives us what we all wish we could have now and again: a second chance.
Another book club podcast? I’ve been cynical in the past about the over-saturation of these types of shows, but I couldn’t help but feel intrigued by this latest offering from Jack Edwards. If you spend any time in Booktok circles, you’ll be familiar with Edwards’s chipper, honest, and nuanced reviews of contemporary and classic literature. Inklings, however, goes beyond a traditional book club format. It offers its audience weekly author interviews and a spotlight monthly book club chat, where Edwards asks authors about their writing process, inspiration, and future projects. First up: Evenings and Weekends by Irish author Oisín McKenna. The episode is out now.
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Alice Florence Orr is a staff writer and managing editor for Podcast Review. She is a writer and co-host of Second Helpings.