[2] He was educated at Sherborne School, Corpus Christi College, Cambridge (MA (Cantab)), and the University of Pennsylvania as a Thouron Scholar.
[6] McCrum is the co-author of The Story of English with William Cran and Robert MacNeil and wrote P. G. Wodehouse: A Life.
[8] In August 2017, McCrum's Every Third Thought: On life, death and the endgame was published,[9] taking its title from Shakespeare's play The Tempest.
[12] The devastating experience and his recovery is chronicled in My Year Off: Recovering Life After a Stroke.
He had been married to Sarah Lyall, an American journalist, for only two months,[1] and the book includes diary entries made by his wife.