The one podcast I listen to every week as it comes out is Lateral, a trivia show hosted by Tom Scott with rotating guests.

Other than that, I have a thing for casual and conversational history podcasts, including:

• The Lesser Bonapartes (old but gold, the full backlog’s only available on spotify under the title ‘From the desk of Glen’)
• Dead Ideas
• Some ‘leader ranking’ podcasts with the same formula: Rex Factor (British monarchs), Totalus Rankium (Roman Emperors and then American Presidents) and Pontifacts (Popes)

Make sure to follow it up with Robin Pearson’s History of Byzantium. He’s still centuries away from done, but I like it even better than Mike Duncan’s after it gets going.

You’re welcome!! Hope it serves you and your cousin well :)

Carl Humpfries’s Piano Handbook and Piano Improvisation Handbook are great, and cover enough for even an absolute beginner. I like noodling around with no previous musical knowledge, and they work very well for that. I think both include pretty decent sections on rhythms, and discuss pretty varied styles.