The Best of This American Life

Darren Barefoot just researched and composed a fantastic list, The 19 Most Loved Episodes of This American Life. I’m a long time radio lover, and I got hooked on This American Life a couple years ago. I’ve since more or less randomly selected and listened to about 25 or 30 episodes. Frankly, all of them were good. If you’re Canadian and wondering what all the fuss is about, it’s sorta hard to describe. If you like CBC’s Vinyl Cafe at all, you’ll love This American Life.

I sometimes wonder what radio will become over the next, say, 20 years. I grew up with the radio on the kitchen table tuned to CBC pretty much every waking hour of the day. I was never a TV person. So it wasn’t much of a shift for me to embrace Podcasts, i.e. time-shifted radio. I don’t think “radio” will ever go away. After-all, story telling via the spoken word is what this whole human communication thing is built upon. Perhaps it won’t be called “radio” in a couple decades. But it will still be there. And that makes me happy.