Patrick Buckridge is that rare person — even in the academic world: a true scholar with a deep, sometimes eccentric, passion for ideas. He belongs contentedly to Brisbane while engaging intellectually with the vast world of scholarship in history, language and literature. He has retained his interest in his first love, Renaissance literature, but understands that literature is also here and now, in the society around him. So his studies have extended to Australian writers, Queensland literary history, the history of the book, the history of literary criticism and the nature of readership for literary work. As his May 2013 public lecture demonstrated, he believes in the continued importance of attentive reading as a source of intellectual understanding.