What is evident from the first pages of Anthony Rudolf’s delightful book on the thrills of reading, published by Seagull Books in 2013, is the writer’s generosity, wit and the joy and solace he finds in reading and writing.

Born in 1942, Rudolf faces mortality’s challenge to any passionate but elderly reader of choosing which books to read and reread. As well as reckoning with the matter of finality, Rudolf confesses with some regret a lifetime of being easily sidetracked, Of being a serial “digressionary”, living, as William Hazlitt confessed, “in a world of contemplation, and not of action.”

As a teenager, and in my early twenties, I read a few books well. If moved by a novel, I thought little of reading it four times in a year. I read more poetry than fiction, and devoted a lot of my reading time to history and science. These days I spend less time reading poetry than I’d like, more time on fiction, and have little regrets about reading much less science and history. Assuming many things, including a typical life expectancy of this country, I am exactly halfway through my serious reading life of 80-100 books per year. Mortality, in this sense, is a good thing. The constant awareness that time is limited forces me to chose to read only what has the potential to be impactful.

Rudolf states a definite preference for Hazlitt over his contemporary Charles Lamb, contrasting Hazlitt’s literary style with Lamb’s more journalistic approach. I share his partiality, but cannot help but see similarities between Rudolf and Lamb, not stylistically, but in their leisurely discursiveness and the exploratory nature of the writing.

Silent Pleasures will appeal in most part to readers that enjoy Anthony Rudolf’s voice. Only those that discover in Rudolf a tutelary spirit will persist with its wonderfully ‘baggy’ 748 pages (though 150 of those pages are the bibliography). It contrasts superbly with Michael Schmidt’s The Novel, an altogether more formal, though no less delightful reading adventure. Silent Pleasures is more autobiographical, a series of windows not only on Rudolf the reader and book hoarder (he is quick to make the distinction between hoarding and collecting), but also on his life as a publisher, poet and literary insider.

For me, the pleasure is not only to be gained from Rudolf’s elegant and sensitive voice, but also to the degree our reading tastes and literary touchstones converge. Reading Silent Voices felt like having an unrestricted rummage around a great reader’s library. I would happily spend the rest of my reading days exploring his selections.