It was to support the village book shop and because the book contained amongst a few essays that looked interesting one on Arthur Cravan that I bought Traces Remain. Certainly I've no curiosity whatsoever about 16th- and 17th-century British writers nor Italian Renaissance figures and it's those that much of the book is about.

How pleasant it was, then, to find that each essay caught and held my attention. Virtually any writer of standard competence and knowledge could hold me rapt with a piece about a subject I'm deeply interested in; I doubt that many, though, could write something about John Aubrey or Ben Jonson that I'd read through, never mind enjoy as much as I did Nicholl's pieces.

I like this book too for what it isn't: So many columnists and reviewers (some of them writing for the same periodicals that first published the pieces in this collection) betray evidence of self-consciousness, especially in seeming to strive for a certain tone--often after reading a few paragraphs of their stuff I find myself thinking 'she's trying to sound breezy', 'he wants to be thought urbane', 'he's going for "knowledgeable but matey" ' and so on. Nicholl just writes, well and naturally, and to say that the reader is unaware of the writer, let alone the act of writing, is high praise. And whilst his style is informal it never seems forcedly so.

I kept this book at the bedside and began by reading it, out of sleepiness, only in bits, but it wasn't long before I began reading it in bits because I didn't want to come to its end. I'd not go so far as to read Nicholl's books on Marlowe and Leonardo, but I'd happily read more of his essays and explorations.