From behind enemy lines with Isis to the best in fiction, read by other authors – what we’re plugged into on our commute.

If you’re anything like us, you will have long tired of trying to get through the mountainous pile of books you got for Christmas, and are looking to slip back into your minor podcast addiction. Less taxing than actually picking up a book and turning its pages, but seemingly just as mentally nourishing, a podcast is the perfect guilt-free way to pass the time on the Tube or zoning out at work. Below, the MR PORTER team discuss what’s currently on their smartphones.

Caliphate (The New York Times)

Members of Isis practise their beheading skills on gelatin-filled dolls. It is revelations like this, delivered at lightning pace with deep psychological insights by New York Times journalist Ms Rukmini Callimachi as she interviews a Canadian former jihadi Mr Abu Huzaifa, that make this 10 episode podcast so compelling. It is an astonishing piece of magazine journalism rendered into podcast form.

Find out more here

Unpopped (BBC)

In seems to be on hiatus, but in my view the best new podcast of the past few years is this show for the BBC, presented by journalist Ms Hayley Campbell. She heads a deep-dive, round table-style panel discussion of the sort more commonly associated with politics or stuffy arts, but instead here tackling pop cultural artefacts, including Seinfeld, RuPaul’s Drag Race, The Spice Girls and the work of Mr Chris Morris. The excellent episode on Come Dine With Me is a good place to start.

Find out more here

Fiction Podcast (The New Yorker)

It’s not new but it’s always great: The New Yorker’s fiction podcast invites a writer who has had a story published in the magazine to read out one of their favourite pieces from the archive. Not only does it help you discover a huge range of writing, it gives you an insight into what makes different writers tick. Favourite recent (and not so recent) episodes of mine have to be Ms Ottessa Moshfegh reading Ms Sheila Heti’s My Life Is A Joke; Mr Colin Barrett reading Ms Joy Williams’ Stuff and Mr David Sedaris reading Ms Miranda July’s Roy Spivey (this last won a listeners’ poll as the favourite from the podcast’s first 10 years.)

Find out more here

Homosapiens

Pop star Mr Will Young and music video director Mr Christopher Sweeney are the chums who charm the ears with their LGBT answer to Woman’s Hour. A real DIY kitchen-table-and-Dictaphone kind of podcast, Homo Sapiens is lo-fi, off-the-cuff and conversational as it looks at the issues faced by the queer community. With interviews conducted over tea and biscuits (guests include Messrs Jeremy Corbyn, Troye Sivan and Sam Smith) and regular interruptions from inquisitive pets, it’s deliberate informality makes for hugely enjoyable listening… especially with a hangover.

Find out more here

Cited

If you’re looking for something less involving and emotionally challenging than the true crime series some of us are hooked on (real-life murder mystery West Cork and its ilk), but still need something with a little substance, Cited might be the thing for you. It bills itself as being “about big ideas and how they change the world, sometimes in troubling ways”. Episodes have seen hosts Mr Gordon Katic and Mr Sam Fenn ask experts about the nature of racism and heroin addiction. So, hardly lighthearted entertainment, then, but something you can dip in and out of without worrying about spoilers (or lying awake at night pondering whodunnit).

Find out more here

Illustrations by Mr Joe McKendry