I used to regret deeply that I cannot listen to audiobooks. The average person probably spends 2h daily commuting, working out or cooking. If I spent all that time listening to audiobooks, I’d ‘automatically’ be reading more than five books a month¹.

Last year, having accepted my fate as a non-audiobook person, I began thinking of better ways to spend some of my daydream time².

By default, I’d listen to the latest episodes in my podcast feed – a mix of two guys talking (Der KI-Podcast), two girls talking (Har du inte läst den?) or whichever episode from 80k, Dwarkesh or The Cognitive Revolution my friends were talking about. However, listening to 5+ podcasts meant too much context switching. Moreover, I only listened to podcasts on a narrow range of subjects, and felt trapped in something like a podcast filter bubble.

I’d been listening to In Our Time (IOT) sporadically since high school – whichever rabbit hole I was in, I’d always find an IOT episode on that exact topic.

Thus, in October last year, I thought I’d try listening through all IOT episodes from 1998 in chronological order, and to take notes on my favourite episodes. If I zoned out when listening to an episode, I’d force myself to relisten – much as you’d listen to an audiobook. Right now (April 2026), I’m at 2006.

Benefits of listening to In Our Time #

Listening more deliberately to IOT has been very rewarding. IOT episodes are extremely well-curated, touch on any topic imaginable, and don’t get outdated. While most early IOT episodes have something to do with WW2 and its aftermath, this is still relevant today. And even the conversations on themes like AI have been surprisingly insightful.

The best part about my IOT project has been hearing all expert hot takes. IOT is like coffee machine talk among academics; professors can express personal views more freely on a podcast than in, say, a lecture theatre. Such remarks are both funny and illuminating³. I appreciate such remarks: I think it’s telling how we remember informal professor remarks even after the sitting the exam, while the ‘important stuff’ gets forgotten.

Some highlights of In Our Time 1998-2006 #

Some highlights from the first 8 years of IOT include the episodes Childhood, Biography, Anatomy, Heroism and The Calendar – I didn’t know there was that much to be said about any of these subjects.

While I usually cannot stand maths podcasts, I really enjoyed Pi. The ending, where mathematician Robert Kaplan compares Pi with Odette from In Search of Lost Time is on point:

Pi is our Odette, leading us on this chase, through the crowd of numbers, through the crowd of phenomena, hoping to capture that elusive ratio, that elusive number which describes to us what circles mean.

I was also positively surprised by the podcast on artificial intelligence. People have philosophised about AIs since at least the 19th century (or since Plato, depending on your definition of ‘AI’). We can – and should – use that body of knowledge when discussing AI consciousness today.

As a fun fact from that episode: apparently humans began obsessing over intelligence in the 20th century. The academics say this was an effect of the war – in 20th century warfare, you needed brainy engineers. Before that, we valued other virtues, such as heroism and loyalty, higher.

Conclusions #

In the end, I’m glad I cannot listen to audiobooks. Most books were written with the intention to be read, rather than listened to, so it’s natural I find most audiobooks hard-going. Conversations, in contrast, naturally lend themselves to listening. We’re lucky there are podcasts like IOT which capture some of the best kinds of conversations. Such podcasts perhaps deserve the same level of commitment as an audiobook.

I’m glad I still have 20 years worth of IOT episodes to go.