Most scholarly books we read for the information or insight they contain. But some we return to simply for the pleasure of the author's company. For instance, I pick up Northrop Frye's Anatomy of Criticism from time to time, just to refresh myself with its elegance and clarity. Jane Aiken Hodge's biography of novelist Georgette Heyer, another favorite, seems to me a model of delicacy, insight, and wit. I feel almost learned every time I dip into Marcia Colish's Medieval Foundations of the Western Intellectual Tradition or the historical essays of Hugh Trevor-Roper.
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