Several weeks ago I decided to stop falling asleep to whatever audiobook I was currently listening to because I spent too much time the following morning figuring out where I drifted off to dreamland. In other words, what’s the last thing I remembered coherently before losing consciousness? So I switched to podcasts of a different nature that didn’t require as much of my brain engaged to follow along.
For example, I use Podcast Addict exclusively now for my podcast listening. I set the sleep timer to thirty minutes and then I review my playlist. I rearrange it, usually putting the shorter episodes at the top. Sometimes I just select on of Dr. Corey Olsen‘s Mythgard Academy Tolkien podcasts because they are always nearly two hours long and I can hop in and out of those without too much loss.
One podcast that I really like to fall asleep to, and re-listen to if I nod off too quickly, has been The History of Rome by Mike Duncan. Duncan started the podcast in 2007 so some of the first episode show their age (auditorially speaking). This week, I reached episodes 20 (a & b) related to the First Punic War. The oddest thing I heard last night was the Romans building walls around a city they were besieging because another army had arrived upon the field and now threatened and surrounded them. The Romans besieged while besieging. This is not going to end well (and unsurprisingly it did not).
Aside from the Stuff You Missed In History Class podcast, I hadn’t been listening to any other history podcasts. But I enjoyed both of these quite a bit, which got me looking for more history related listening. This week, I’m testing out three new podcasts, one of them the current endeavor of Mike Duncan, called Revolutions.
I found a short fifteen minute history podcast produced by the University of Texas at Austin. I’m on the third episode but not sure I’ll continue. I’ll give it a couple more before unsubscribing.
I have high hopes for Ben Franklin’s World, I just hope they are not all interviews. The first three episodes are inaugural introductory interviews.
All of these history podcasts have hundreds of episodes under their collective belts so I have a dearth of listening available and won’t need to resort to counting sheep or backwards from one hundred to transition to dream land successfully.