1. The Moth Podcast, because telling a story live is like walking a tightrope.
From Jill Donnelly trying to stop her dad's wedding to New Yorker editor Adam Gopnik, there is a story out there for every topic and mood.
2. The New Yorker Fiction Podcast, for when you want to know who your nerd crushes are crushing on.
It's like book-lover inception: authors you love read authors they love.
3. Welcome to Night Vale, because any real book nerd loves to escape into a universe.
What's great about Night Vale is that it ~feels~ like a book, because the stories are in your imagination just like when you read them.
4. The Longform Podcast, because it's like a chill hangout sesh with your favorite cool authors.
They don't even mind your ratty IKEA furniture and the piles of books.
5. The Organist, because it's like an audio hologram of The Believer magazine.
Lush sound design, beautiful stories: there's so much to love.
6. Selected Shorts, because famous actors reading beautiful stories just never gets old.
You can't say no to Holly Hunter reading Alice Munro. It makes books very mad when you do that, and you don't want to make books mad.
7. The New Yorker Out Loud, for when you want to know how your favorite non-fiction stories came into being.
All of those pages of tiny magazine print come into three dimensions on the mic.
8. The Lit Show, because it lets you into the secret fancy world of the Iowa Writer's Workshop.
From Roxanne Gay talking about Bad Feminist to Geoffrey Dyer explaining why he loves Miles Davis, the episodes show that your favorite writers are as eloquent on the mic as they are on the page.
9. Writers on the Record, because the lineup looks like the short list for a literary prize.
Frank McCourt. Jonathan Safran Foer. Edwidge Danticat. Mary Gaitskill. Wells Tower. I mean, come on.
10. Slate's Audio Book Club for when you want some friends to read along with.
You don't have to buy a bottle of wine and nobody reschedules: It's just you, your earbuds and that box of chardonnay from last week.
11. Anything from the PEN American Center, because they <3 writing as much as you <3 reading.
12. NPR's Fresh Air, because even the most self-serious writers are no match for Terry Gross' charms.
13. The Bookworm Podcast, because there is no better place to begin than the question, "Where would you be without books?"
Answer: at a bookstore buying books.