5 Podcasts We're Listening to This Month

Team D&B are big fans of a podcast - whether it's popping one on whilst we're cooking an evening meal, listening in the car or simply laughing along with weekly favourites whilst lazing in an armchair.

Here we share five podcasts that we're listening to this month. Enjoy!

1. Where Should We Begin?

Therapist Esther Perel's brilliant podcast invites you, the listener, to be a fly on the wall in one-off, anonymous couples' therapy sessions - listening as the individuals outline their situation and as Esther provides guidance, asking questions and helping them navigate their way to clarity. The topics covered include loss, infidelity, betrayal and more. They make for intimate, poignant and fascinating listening. Her most recent season (season 3) features "couples in lockdown" in which she speaks with couples currently in isolation and the impact it is having on their relationship. A must listen.

2. Desert Island Discs

Possibly the greatest of podcasts, this Radio 4 show has been available as a podcast for several years allowing us to easily access archives of inspirational conversations as well as keeping up to date with new additions. For those unfamiliar with the format, Desert Island Discs invites a celebrity or house-hold name to select the eight musical tracks to take with them onto a desert island, explaining the rationale for each choice in turn which usually facilitates a fascinating journey through their life so far, the things that have influenced them, the highs, the lows, the memorable parts and the regrets. Listening to our heroes sharing insight in this way is almost always illuminating, inspiring and poignant. Favourites from the archive include the Tom Hanks and Dawn French episodes. More recently we loved the Ian Wright episode - make sure you have your tissues at the ready!

3. Modern Love 

Modern Love is a weekly column in The New York Times about relationships (it's a brilliant read). In this podcast, notable individuals read selected essays from the column, bringing them to life. This is story telling at its finest. Covering love and the knotty dynamics of relationships in modern times, including all the feelings, heartbreak, betrayal and surprises that come with that. A must listen for the romantics.

4. How To Fail

You’d think a podcast on failure might be bleak and demoralising but this podcast is anything but. Hosted by author and journalist, Elizabeth Day, How to Fail is based on the premise that learning how to fail is actually learning to succeed better. In each episode, Elizabeth asks her guests to identify three failures within their lives which are then dissected and unpacked. The guests are from a wide range of backgrounds and include names such as Phoebe Waller Bridge, Dame Kelly Homes and Malcolm Gladwell; all of whom demonstrate a rawness and vulnerability that we don’t often see in today’s social media age.

As you can imagine, they cover a myriad of failures, some of which are hilarious, others of which are much more heart rending. However, all of them are thought provoking in their own way and when paired with Elizabeth’s warmth, empathy and compassion, you finish each episode feeling inspired and joyous. A bonus episode has also been added on dealing with Covid-19 which provides listeners with much needed calmness, positivity and a whole new perspective on how to deal with difficult situations, both in terms of the current Coronavirus outbreak but also more generally. You’ll feel your heart-rate drop in minutes and a smile come to your face. 

5. Birdnote

Birdnote is a two-minute nature podcast hosted by a jolly, yet unassumingly smooth-toned American voice. Needless to say, it’s about birds, but this little snippet of a podcast tells a tiny and usually adorable story about the environment, bird behaviour, or a remarkable species each day. It’s a little oasis of certainty in a troubling time, like saluting a magpie from your window.

We hope our recommendations provide some inspiration for podcast listening this month. For more inspiration, follow us on Instagram.