Podcasts

The majority of my free time is spent reading something or listening to something.

Podcasts I like

I love podcasts! I discovered the magical world of podcasts sometime in 2017. Haven’t stopped since. My podcast app of choice is Pocket Casts. A sample of some great podcasts:

• Seen and the Unseen by Amit Varma:
  India specific podcast, lots of social science and philosophy. Long form (sometimes > 5hr long) interview/discussion.

• Zero by Akshat Rathi:
  explores the policies, tactics and clean technologies taking us to a future of zero emissions as the world fights climate change. Climate reporter Akshat Rathi talks to the people who are making it happen. Produced by Bloomberg Green.

• Empire by Anita Anand and William Dalrymple:
  A great podcast about empires and their history.

• The Anthropocene Reviewed by the incredible John Green:
  This is my favorite podcast, by a country mile!

• Grand Tamasha hosted by Milan Vaishnav:
  Discusses the latest developments in Indian politics, economics, foreign policy, society, and culture for a global audience

• Ideas of India by Shruti Rajagopalan:
  Economis Shruti Rajagopalan examines the ideas that will propel India forward, via conversations with researchers and top thinkers in social science and beyond.

• Computing Up with Michael Littman and Dave Ackley:
  Conversations about computing writ large

• Casual Inference hosted by Lucy D’Agostino McGowan and Ellie Murray:
  podcast about statistics, causal inference, epidemiology, and a bunch of related things.

• The Gerrymandering Project by the good folks at FiveThirtyEight and also Dave Wasserman:
  podcast (plus interactives) about the fascinating complexities of gerrymandering and more importantly self-sorting!

• Rachman Review with Gideon Rachman:
  A podcast about international politics by the Financial Times.

• Sway with Kara Swisher:
  Interview podcast unpacking power and technology

• Volts by David Roberts:
  A newsletter/podcast about clean energy and politics. (Pretty wonky, which is why I love it!)

Books

I read a lot, with occasional droughts. My Goodreads profile, which can be found here, is reasonably up to date.

Where to get books?

Libraries

I love libraries! I frequently use the University of Wisconsin–Madison libraries and the Middleton Public Library. Both have a vast collection of audiobooks and eBooks that are made available through Libby. If you live in the US, chances are your local library provides eBooks and audiobooks through Libby. The Middleton Public Library also provides audiobooks and eBooks via Hoopla Digital. In fact the local library near you may even offer free access to movies, TV shows and documentaries through Kanopy.

Buying Physical Books

If you want to buy physical copies, I highly recommend BookFinder. Its a search engine that collates a list of online stores where the book you want is available sorted by price (and categorized by used/new). It is perhaps the best way to find the cheapest copy of a book available for sale online.