Caroline Crampton
Caroline Crampton
Caroline Crampton
Caroline Crampton is a writer and a podcaster. She writes non-fiction books about the world and how we live in it — The Way to the Sea (2019) and A Body Made of Glass (2024).
Latest Posts
In my teens, I spent a lot of time playing an interactive fiction game called Hamlet: The Text Adventure. I enjoyed the snarky little additions the creator, Robin Johnson, made to the Shakespearean story (there's a room where you come...
The most popular link last time was this handy printable calendar, with with Lena Dunham on her mum's style second. There have been many Heated Rivalry takes. This one — The Truth About Yearning – is the best one I have read. I haven't...
This is the 1969 Pan paperback edition of Devil's Cub. The novel was originally published by Heinemann in 1932.My plan to read my way through Georgette Heyer's historical fiction in chronological order fell apart rather quickly. After my...
Last week instead of links I shared thirteen small life changes/improvements I made in 2025 and will be sticking with in 2026. Peter Watkins's strange and wonderful 1964 film Culloden is currently available to watch on BBC iPlayer. If...
I have a new review out in the Observer, of In Love With Love: The Persistence and Joy of Romantic Fiction by Ella Risbridger:A love letter to romance fiction | The ObserverElla Risbridger’s In Love With Love makes an impassioned case...
This is the 1956 Pan paperback edition of These Old Shades. The novel was originally published by Heinemann in 1926.I finished Georgette Heyer's debut novel, The Black Moth, wishing that I could read more about the intriguing, unusual...
Emma Orchard's debt to Georgette Heyer is evident throughout A Gentleman's Offer. Orchard, a former copy editor at Mills & Boon, makes this overt — she writes in her acknowledgements how she began with Heyer fanfiction during the Covid...
Every new year, I think about the bookshop where I worked as a teenager. Specifically, a shift I always did on 24th December. While the shop was open that day, we were very busy with last-minute Christmas shoppers. Then after closing the...
This is the 1965 Pan paperback edition of The Black Moth. The novel was originally published by Heinemann in 1921.I began The Black Moth with very little information beyond its biographical context. Heyer first invented the story to...
At the beginning of 2025, I set an intention for my year: Reading A Lot, But Differently. Now that the year has ended, I want to assess how I did. I certainly accomplished the first part of it — I read 121 books last year, the most since...
This was a brilliant Christmas present from my husband. It's partly a non-fiction exploration of the history of British sheep and wool, partly a directory of all the different breeds with notes on their suitability for knitting/spinning,...
This is my copy of Jandy Mac Comes Back, the 1952 Collins edition.Jandy Mac Comes Back is a grand reunion in book form. I imagine that a devoted Elsie J. Oxenham reader devouring it when it was first published in 1941 would have revelled...
October:Hallowe'en Party by Agatha ChristieI re-read this for the Halloween episode of Shedunnit, and was pleased to find it better than I remembered. There's a folk horror, pagan element to it that I rather enjoyed.Third Girl by Agatha...
The most popular link last time was the pixelated fireplace, with this piece about the age (44) at which millennial women begin to feel old second. Did Jane Austen Invent the Wellness Guy? Yes she did! And there's a whole section in my...
The most popular link last time was this incredible video, with this xkcd comic second. I'm always here for an Emily Gould essay. Here, she's investigating the supposed "cliff" that women experience at the age of 44, when the physical...