Martina Pugliese

Martina Pugliese

I try to make sense of things, but I love too many of them.

Things I like

This page is a living document where I list things I really like. Fundamentally, it’s a list of lists, because for certain material I use tools to keep track of items. For others, I couldn’t conceive a better way than to list them here directly. My goal is just to have a single place where to keep track of everything, and to share with anyone who might be interested.

I’m quite obsessed with making lists, so here goes.

Movies & shows

For movies and shows, I use The Movie Database - here are my lists of favourites.

Books

For books, I use goodreads, here are my lists - the read books may have a review I wrote, I have started doing this just recently so I may fill in older ones retrospectively, if I still feel the memory is fresh enough. I don’t review everything though.

Podcasts

To listen to podcasts, I use Pocket Casts, but because the amount of them I either subscribe to (not necessarily listening to them) or have finished has grown to be quite unwieldy, I have decided to list here the ones I really love(d) - this doesn’t include podcasts used for learning language (see below).

In Italiano

Cultura & cose varie

  • Radio3Scienza (in corso): storico programma di Radio 3, ideato da Rossella Panarese, che discute di argomenti scientifici con degli ospiti
  • Tu che sei un fisico (terminato, per ora): di Marco Delmastro, che risponde a domande di fisica ricevute da ascoltatori, molto molto gradevole
  • Certe Cose (terminato?): podcast di Chiara Alessi realizzato con il Post, ci parla della storia d’Italia attraverso degli oggetti trovati in elenchi che caratterizzano alcuni eventi
  • Ci vuole una scienza (in corso): podcast di Emanuele Menietti e Beatrice Mautino realizzato con il Post, racconta storie dell’attualità scientifica con un tono molto informativo, ma leggero

Storie

  • Racconti Mondiali (estate 2018, terminato): podcast del Corriere della Sera che ripercorre alcuni eventi salienti della storia dei mondiali di calcio
  • Olivetti, l’occasione perduta (primavera 2021, terminato), podcast de il Sole 24 Ore che racconta la storia di Olivetti, azienda e uomo
  • Limoni - Il G8 di Genova vent’anni dopo (estate 2021, terminato): podcast prodotto da Internazionale che ripercorre gli eventi del G8 del 2001 con le voci di chi c’era

In English

Culture & various things

  • Planet Progress (spring 2021, finished): a podcast about the winners of the Google Impact Challenge, organisations and small businesses who are working towards a shift to a sustainable future. Narrated by Hannah Fry
  • Desert Island Discs (ongoing): I’m sure this is very well known by any Briton, but it was a lovely surprise for me (though something tells me that we have something similar in Italy). The host has a very enjoyable conversation with a guest that is asked to bring 10 tunes they love, and explain the choice behind each. The guest is usually someone well known, though not necessarily to me, so I normally listen to the episodes where I know the person
  • The David McWilliams podcast (ongoing): exploring and explaining economics via the analysis of current news, it’s very enjoyable
  • More or Less: behind the statistics (ongoing): BBC Radio 4 podcast hosted by Tim Harford, it debunks statistical myths, talks a lot about how to interpret data correctly in a very lighthearted way
  • The curious cases of Rutherford & Fry (ongoing): hosted by Adam Rutherford and Hannah Fry on BBC Radio 4, this podcast explores science’s interesting facts and answers to people’s curiosities
  • Today, Explained (ongoing): from the Vox team of the Explained Netflix documentary show, a podcast that dissects news and current affairs

Stories

  • The big steal (ongoing?): by G. Esler, this is the story of the Russia of today, a very interesting reconstruction of what happened since the fall of the Soviet Union that led to effectively a plutocracy. I’ve listened to this after a recommendation in spring 2022 and I found it very interesting, I’m not 100% sure whether there will be new seasons but I believe so.
  • Wind of change (2020, finished): this is a bit out there but I decided to listen to it as it has been ideated by P Radden Keffe, whose investigative journalism work I read and appreciated. It follows and tries to investigate the rumour that the Scorpion’s song “Wind of change” was written/commissioned by the CIA for propagandistic reasons. It is an interesting listen - I really hate conspiracy theories so would have never chosen this podcast but despite the wild story you can learn a lot of things about those times.

Articles - written stuff

To store things I read on the Internet that I really enjoyed, I use Refind - my library with links categorised into topics here.

Language learning - resources

There’s plenty of resources to learn languages online (some are obvious), but here the ones which really made a difference for me.

German

  • I am following the courses of the Deutsche Welle, they’re really good as they lead you through your learning in an engaging yet serious way
  • I use Duolinguo too, but only coupled with grammar studying and the above
  • I am also using (with much fun) the podcast from the Coffee break series, it’s really well made and very useful!

Travelling

I don’t use any particular resource to plan travels, I generally look for information from various places and manually plan my itineraries. I use the Tripadvisor travel map to visually record where I’ve been though.