Recommendation Engine: The Mysterious Affair at Styles

Welcome to this week's Recommendation Engine from Podcast Rex, rounding up the week in podcast reviews. Get this in an email each week by signing up to be a supporter of Podcast Rex from £3.99.

Apple Podcasts New & Noteworthy:

• History’s Greatest Conspiracy Theories
• Behind the Money
• The Illuminator
• Intoxicating History
• Scary Terri

Spotify New & 🔥

• The Quilt
• The Rest Is Classified
• The Buckleys
• The Diplomat: The Official Podcast
• Won in a Million

Patricia Nicol in the Sunday Times

• Purple Heart Warriors (BBC News/BBC World Service) - “Although hammy (or, when you throw in rationing, spammy?) this is also a valuable education.”
• The Mysterious Affair at Styles (Audible) - “Deeply pleasurable audio to sink into on a darkening winter’s day.”

Fiona Sturges in the FT

• Operation Seal Bay (BBC Radio Wales) - “Where Lost’s famous hatch revealed a bunker containing a laboratory, this one . . . well, I won’t reveal its exact contents. What I can say is that it played a pivotal part in the operations of an international smuggling ring, the activities of which were uncovered by accident.”

James Marriott in the Times

• The Rest Is Entertainment (Goalhanger), Live at the Royal Albert Hall - “The segments of actual podcasting (which can feel aimless at a live event) are well-planned, rich with showbiz gossip and full of jokes. It feels much more like a comedy double act than a tent at a literary festival.”

Clair Woodward in the Sunday Times

• The Trapped (ITV News) - “He talks to tenants trapped in homes unfit to live in and asks why nothing is being done to help them.”
• 16 Sunsets (TellTale/Antica) - “Initially the plan was that the operation would be used for Cold War espionage, but it became the space exploration project that saved Nasa.’”
• Incubation (Pushkin) - “There are episodes on how Edward Jenner’s smallpox vaccine began the real fight against viruses, how the common Epstein-Barr virus can be linked to other diseases, and why it’s been so difficult to find a vaccine or a cure for HIV.”

In the Guardian’s Guide newsletter

• The Trapped (ITV News) - “ This shocking podcast explores how a hunt for a short news story evolved into a four-year investigation into the state of the UK’s social housing.”

Highlights from the Radio Times

• The True Story of the Coward Brothers (Audible) - “Rock star Elvis Costello and record producer T Bone Burnett first collaborated as the Coward Brothers in 1985. They’re back in this mockumentary, written by Costello, that’s in effect an alternative history of rock ‘n’ roll.”
• Deadpod (ind.) - “A light-hearted attempt to demystify human mortality.”
• The Sacred (Theos Think Tank) - “Think dialogue rather than doctrinal didacticism.”

Heat’s Top of the Pods

• 16 Sunsets (TellTale/Antica) ⭐⭐⭐⭐
• Single Ladies in Your Area (Plosive) ⭐⭐⭐⭐

In the Irish Independent, Alice Florence Orr listed her 10 podcasts of 2024.

Scott Bryan in Great British Podcasts

• The Screen Rot Podcast with Jacob and Jake (ind.) - “A delightful concept for a podcast, where comedians Jacob Hawley and Jake Farrell cynically unpack the worst content that has come up in their social media feeds over the last week, and ask why on earth certain influencers and creators have become so popular in the first place.”
• Gangster: The Story of the Daniels and the Lyons (BBC Radio 5 Live) - “Looks at two crime families, the and an active two-decade feud between the pair that has resulted in copious torture, violence and murder in and around Glasgow.”
• The Mysterious Affair at Styles (Audible) - “Author Matt Gibberd interviews a well known name about the house they grew up in, the house they live in now and the home that they hope to live in the future.”
• Talking Rubbish (18Sixty) - "It’ll make you think a lot more carefully about how you throw your items away.