I use to ride the train from San Francisco to Sunnyvale and was able to read a lot of books. I had to be careful though because if I got too into the book I would miss my stop.

Audio Books:

Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection by Charles Darwin -- https://librivox.org/the-origin-of-species-by-charles-darwin...

The Art of War by Sun Tzu -- https://archive.org/details/art_of_war_librivox

Gulliver’s Travels by Jonathan Swift -- https://archive.org/details/gulliver_ld_librivox

Podcasts:

Ruby Rouges (ruby programming talks/programming in general)-- http://rubyrogues.com/

StarTalk with Neil Degrasse Tyson (Space, comedians, science) -- http://www.startalkradio.net/

Finding good stuff is so damn hard. I'm listening to that stuff whenever I do anything that doesn't require too much focus. Time that adds up.

Three I can recommend:

http://shoptalkshow.com/ - Webdesign and development mostly

http://javascriptjabber.com/ - If you're interested in JavaScript development

http://www.dancarlin.com//disp.php/hharchive - Free older recordings of history podcasts. He adds a lot of emotion and perhaps bias to every story but as a result they are never dry and often from an unusual perspective

The infinite monkey cage

http://www.bbc.co.uk/podcasts/series/timc

In Our Time

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b006qykl

In Our Time is an excellent radio programme, and every episode is available online. There is plenty of choice.

Have you checked out Audible? There are plenty of options. I prefer biographies and self-help books. I recently listened to "Getting Things Done" by David Allen and "How to Win Friends and Influence People" by Dale Carnegie.

ThisAmericanLife is usually a really interesting listen, not anything Hacker specific but usually a nice insight in other (people's) worlds.

i'm also going to be commuting about 40 min by bus. I get motion sickenss if I read or look at a screen on the bus, so some podcasts would be very helpful!

Stuff You Should Know is a great Podcast