Top Ten Tuesday: Ten Podcasts You Should Try

As always, Top Ten Tuesday is hosted by the wonderful The Broke and The Bookish.

This week is a top ten audio freebie, and I decided to go with Ten Podcasts You Should Try. These are ten podcasts I absolutely love.

1) The Black Tapes

This is a fictional podcast portrayed as a real-life broadcast. Alex Reagan is the host, working closely with Dr. Richard Strand, a skeptic dedicated to disproving the paranormal. At the beginning of the show, the focus is on Dr. Strand's "Black Tapes", with each episode centered around a mysterious occurrence that could not be explained. Now the focus has spread to include some far-reaching conspiracies and theories.

2) Tanis

This is a spinoff of The Black Tapes Podcast, with Alex's co-producer, Nic, taking the lead. Nic is taking on the topic of Tanis, a far-reaching mystery shrouded in secrecy.

3) Limetown

This is another fabulously creepy and mysterious fictionalized story being portrayed as a real-life podcast. Lia Haddock is the narrator, a reporter attempting to find the answers about a town and research center, where everyone vanished without a trace.

4) The Message

This continues my trend of loving fictionalized dramas being portrayed as true stories. This podcast features a narrator embedded with a group of cryptographers who are attempting to decode mysterious alien transmissions. The ending features an absolutely brilliant twist that left me completely shocked, and has me wanting to go back and listen all over again.

5) Unsolved Murders: True Crime Stories

This podcast features two hosts discussing unsolved murders, interspersed with voice actors depicting parts of the story as old-time radio drama. Each murder is explored for between two to three episodes, with the hosts giving their opinion as to the solution.

6) 48 Hours

This is the audio from every recent 48 Hours episode broadcast, which means lots of true crime reporting to listen to.

7) Stuff They Don't Want You to Know

I'm fascinated by cults, conspiracies, urban legends, true crime, and unsolved mysteries, and this podcast covers all that and more.

8) Wait Wait Don't Tell Me

This show teaches you about the week's news while being absolutely hysterically funny. If you get a chance to go to a live taping, definitely do--I did, and it was such a great experience!

9) Welcome to Night Vale

You'll have noticed a trend by this point--I love fictionalized dramas acting as real-life podcasts. Night Vale is a very strange, mysterious town, and Cecil is bringing us all the weekly news.

10) Lore

Each episode, Lore examines a scary story from history, and how this plays into what we fear today. 

Special mention goes to Serial--I couldn't really get into the second season, but the first season was incredible.

What podcasts would you recommend?