It's November 1st and the History Channel seems to have deemed it the unofficial Book Lover's Day. The true National Book Lover's Day was August 9th this year, but I digress. In honor of the unofficial one, I'm reading/sponging Christopher Duggan's The Force of Destiny, about Italy's Risorgimento, as research for my current work in progress as part of NaNoWriMo. What is sponging you ask?
According to Samuel Taylor Coleridge, poet and critic (1772-1834), readers may be divided into four classes:
1. Sponges, who absorb all that they read and return it in nearly the same state, only a little dirtied.
2. Sand-glasses, who retain nothing and are content to get through a book for the sake of getting through the time.
3. Strain-bags, who retain merely the dregs of what they read.
4. Mogul diamonds, equally rare and valuable, who profit by what they read, and enable others to profit by it also.
Most days, I'm a sponge though I aspire to the mogul diamond level. Your turn. What kind of reader are you?