Podcasts
- NPR does incredibly entertaining economics reporting at Planet Money and also has a good show On the Media.
- WNYC’s Radiolab is an awfully well produced science show. Nothing like it.
- WBEZ’s This American Life. They say it’s like a movie, only for radio.
- TED are video podcasts of great talks, “ideas worth spreading”.
- The Moth podcasts live storytelling performances. Has nothing to do with social sciences, but are generally great.
- The Guardian explains Big Ideas and also has a good business podcast.
- The New Yorker (see below) writers and editors talk about the (mostly US) Political Scene and read you fiction.
- Dan Savage Love Podcast is the greatest sex-advice column in podcast land,
Periodicals
- Daily, I like The New York Times, the Guardian and Süddeutsche Zeitung.
- Weekly, The Economist is my no-bullshit, (but dry,) high quality, global news magazine of choice. The New Yorker is the intellectual weekly I read, when I’m looking for beautiful writing and more qualitative journalism. I adore it.
Services
- I’ve always had a hard time finishing books and periodicals aside from academic reading. Audiobooks did the trick for me, and I’m happy with Audible.com and Audible.de.
- I’ve found Amazon Kindle helpful, even without a reader. Highlighting and annotating are very convenient. Here is my profile, including books I like and have read.
- I organize my academic reading at Mendeley.com, the “Facebook for science”. Here’s me.
Books
I’m excited about these books:
Bird, K., & Sherwin, M. J. (2005). American Prometheus – The Triumph and Tragedy of J. Robert Oppenheimer. New York, NY: Knopf.
Ryan, C., & Jethá, C. (2010). Sex at Dawn – The Prehistoric Origins of Modern Sexuality. New York, NY: HarperCollins.
Wilkinson, R., & Pickett, K. (2009). The Spirit Level – Why More Equal Societies Almost Always do Better. Book. London, UK: Penguin.
Wilkinson, R., & Pickett, K. (2009). The Spirit Level – Why More Equal Societies Almost Always do Better. Book. London, UK: Penguin.
Gladwell, M. (2008). Outliers – The Story of Success. New York, NY: Little, Brown and Company.
Taleb, N. N. (2007). The Black Swan – The Impact of the Highly Improbable. New York, NY: Random House.
