Best of 2025 | My Favorite Podcasts

Who’s ready for a podcast roundup? For some reason, I didn’t do one last year, and I know everyone was devastated about that. (Right???) This year, I’ve decided to break up my list into three categories: my top three, long-time faves, and new discoveries. Let’s get into it!

My Top Three

aka, the podcasts I’ve developed such intense parasocial relationships with that they’ve become my go-to comfort listens.

1) The Popcast – No podcast fills me with such happiness and delight as The Popcast. I look forward to all of the episodes I get from them, and feel bereft when there’s been a few days without Jamie, Knox, and Erin in my ears. They are a comfort listen for me, as I will listen to old episodes when I need a pick-me-up. What’s this podcast about? At its heart, it’s a pop culture podcast—but not just news recaps. Think snake drafts (cool moms in pop culture), “The NOs of…” episodes on everything from motherhood to gifts, and seasonal TV and movie previews. And their Flavortown episodes are not to be missed if you love an unhinged opinion. I will follow the Popcast Media Group to the ends of this earth.

2) Sarah’s Bookshelves Live – I listen to a lot of book podcasts, and Sarah’s Bookshelves Live is my favorite of them all. I subscribe to her Patreon, which is well worth the money because she puts a lot of work into her bonus episodes. I think Sarah is one of the best interviewers, especially of authors, and she’s great at asking follow-up questions on the fly. I also love the seasonal book preview episodes. Four times a year, she and a co-host highlight the books being published that season. I don’t read a ton of frontlist, but I like knowing what’s coming out and adding titles to my TBR for later. Her bonus episodes are where it’s at, though, especially her spoiler discussions of books and the Unscripted series, where they talk about a bookish topic (like abandoning books, book blurbs, book synopses, etc).

3) Stuff You Should Know – Josh and Chuck are my honorary uncles, and I will hear no smack talk about them. I adore both of them so very much! This podcast is one of the longest-running ones, and it’s amazing that they still haven’t run out of topics to tell us about! This is an informational podcast where my two uncles sit down and chat about a topic. It could be a true crime mystery, a pop culture phenomenon, a historical event, or something random, like how to make conversation or all about the human scream. I never know what I’m going to learn from my beloved uncles every week!

Long-Time Faves

aka, the OGs who have been with me for years and I need them to never, ever stop publishing episodes

1) Best Friends with Nicole Byer and Sasheer Zamata – Best Friends was on a looooong hiatus, and I was thrilled when they started publishing new episodes again. This podcast can be irreverent at times, is filled with profanity, and is definitely not safe for kids. But it makes me giggle every single week, and I love them for that. They have such a sweet friendship! There’s no specific topic to this podcast; they just chit-chat about what’s going on in their lives and sometimes answer questions from listeners or take unhinged Buzzfeed quizzes.

2) Book Riot – I only recently started listening to Book Riot after a pretty long hiatus. I listened to the show years and years ago, and stopped because I found the hosts’ opinions to be a little hoity-toity for me. But I love hearing the ins and outs of the publishing world, which is what this podcast is here to give me, so I decided to start listening again. And, you know what? I still don’t fully agree with the hosts, and our reading tastes diverge wildly. But that’s okay! I appreciate their insights, even if I’m probably never going to take their book recommendations.

3) Currently Reading – It’s the third bookish podcast on the list! Currently Reading has been a long-time favorite of mine, and I love tracking the books I’m reading based on Kaytee and Meredith’s recommendations. So far, I have a 4.2 overall rating for Kaytee’s recs and 3.5 overall rating for Meredith’s recs, so Kaytee is much more aligned to my reading tastes. Each episode, the hosts detail three books they’ve recently read and give their opinions (good and bad!), and then dive into a bookish topic. I don’t always stay for the topic, but I always love hearing their book reviews!

4) Faith Adjacent – Am I a practicing Christian? No. Is a podcast all about Christian life one of my favorite podcasts? Sure is! This is another podcast from the Popcast Media Group, and each episode dives into a subsection of Christianity and faith. It makes me laugh and sometimes makes me nostalgic for my Christian past. These are the kind of Christians I want more people to be like: they believe wholeheartedly in the Bible, and because of that, they understand why women should be pastors, gay people should have equal rights, and Trump should not be our president.

5) The Girl Next Door Podcast – Oh, how I love this podcast! Kelsey and Erica are funny, introspective, and have wildly different personalities. I love how much they laugh during their podcast recordings, but they’re also not afraid to get deep and sometimes even cry during an episode. Each episode is a different topic on essentially anything they want, whether that’s motherhood or goal-setting or dealing with hard things. Come for their insanely delightful Fall Extravaganza episodes and stay for their funny banter and deep conversations.

New Discoveries

aka, the podcasts that I just started listening to in 2025 and are quickly becoming my favorites

1) American History Tellers – This podcast is probably the geekiest one I have on my list! American History Tellers is essentially taking you back in time to the people, events, and stories that are part of America’s past. Each season runs 5–6 episodes and dives into a historical event you may only vaguely know. By the end, you’ll understand it inside and out. I’m still catching up on the backlist, but some of my recent favorite seasons are America’s Monuments, J. Edgar Hoover’s FBI, and Political Parties.

2) Best Laid Plans – You guys! I can’t believe how long it took me to finally download some episodes of Best Laid Plans. I love organizing, I love planners! Of course, I’m going to adore this podcast. Each episode is around half an hour, which is the perfect length. I have learned so much about planners and organizing my day and setting goals from this podcast, and I really want to dive into the backlist at some point to get even more tips and tricks.

3) Diabolical Lies – I just talked about this podcast in my post on Friday, and I am OBSESSED with Caro and Katie. I love how they begin every episode talking about their “sponsors,” which are just jabs at the people and things that they learned in their research. (AKA: “Today’s episode of Diabolical Lies was brought to you by President Eisenhower’s kink for covert ops, Senator Joseph McCarthy’s therapist…”). Their episodes are long (usually 2 hours each) but so well-researched and thought-provoking. Plus, they’re funny and they make these complex topics like capitalism feel a lot less scary.

4) Good Hang with Amy Poehler – I know, I know. Everyone is listening to this podcast and I am very late to the Good Hang train. But I’m here and I am in looooove with every single episode Amy releases. (Okay, maybe the release of the Aziz Ansari episode wasn’t the best look…) Every episode makes me laugh and makes me care so much more deeply for the person being interviewed than I originally did. Amy is a fantastic interviewer!

5) On Fire with Jeff Probst – This is my most niche podcast recommendation, and it’s only useful for the people who watch and love the reality TV show, Survivor. After each episode of the show, Jeff sits down to discuss what happened in the episode and give behind-the-scenes details. (On each episode is a show producer + a former player. The former player is different every season.) I love the BTS details the most, such as how base camp works, how they develop the challenges, and what camp life is like (<– this is usually from the player’s perspective and it’s so interesting!). I also love that at the end of each episode, Jeff reads his casting notes on the player who was voted off.

And, of course, I can’t talk about my favorite podcasts without talking about my own podcast! My best friend Bri and I started The Friendship Paradox in 2022 so we could chit-chat all about what it’s like to be best friends with wildly different personalities. (Case in point: When we took the Big 5 personality test, Bri scored 100% on the extroversion scale and I scored… 8%.) We started our show with seasons focused on specific topics and how our personalities impact the way we approach things like work, travel, family, relationships, etc. And now we just talk about whatever the hell we want, sometimes through the lens of personality and sometimes not. In 2025, we released 21 episodes and I’m really proud of us! This is purely a passion project for us and our listener numbers are low, but that’s okay! We have fun and enjoy ourselves, and that’s all that matters.

What are some of your favorite podcasts?