After several months of good progress, I've experienced a bit of a health setback in the past couple of weeks and found it difficult to focus on physical books. (I've written a little more about my experiences of long-term illness here). I asked my podcast production assistant Leandra, who I know is an avid...

The most popular link last time was this one to Sabrina Bockler's paintings, with the minute cryptic game second. The "looking back on myself in 2016" trend of recent weeks has convinced me that the confessional online personal essay is back (if it ever really went away). Here's a great example of the form.Someone...

The most popular link last time was this piece on computer literacy, with this piece about managing anxiety second. An appreciation of graphic designer Margaret Calvert (yes, my fellow font people, she is that Calvert) who created the visual language of Britain's road signs. Among the many excellent facts that I...

I really wanted to like Regency Buck. Although I've enjoyed all of my Georgette Heyer reading so far, I was particularly excited to arrive at one with "Regency" in the title. She's most famous for fiction set in this period and now, after my introductory sojourn in the 1750s and the 1780s, I thought I had arrived at...

I thought I would end up reading less. When I abolished my annual reading target — in response to the fact that in 2025 I read 121 books but felt frustrated about it — I did so in the expectation that I would not read as many books. Without the promise of that accomplished glow every time I marked a book "read" on...

The most popular link last time was this commentary on liking January, with Gerald's parsnips second. Are you in a computer literacy bubble? Probably.My obsession with Susan Orlean's fashion has only been enhanced by this closet tour. All her shoes are in identical stackable boxes with a photograph of the shoe stuck...

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 across a character from another play, Othello, muttering about a "brazen tart")...

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 watched the show yet, because I'm saving it up for the next time I have to take...

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 first two titles, The Black Moth and These Old Shades, I was so keen to keep...

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 you have access to it, I highly recommend watching it, as well as the making of...

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 for the value of a much-maligned genreThe ObserverCaroline CramptonI liked this...

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 character at its centre — Tracy Belmanoir, Duke of Andover, better known as...