What animal are you?

   When I was thinking about what to write about this week, I considered something about my reading diet. My general aim is to read a little of everything and a lot of what I love. This led to me thinking about how many of those people I often talk about read, and it struck me that readers fall into different camps that could be likened to animals. So here it is, a run down of reading styles as animals. 

What animal are you?

Cow

This is Samuel Johnson’s style. The cow browses the vast fields of literature, plucking up various tufts from here and there, chewing them thoughtfully and ruminating. If we’re lucky, the cow may produce milk and cream from this activity. The cow doesn’t finish a book, but they thoroughly masticate over what they have read.

Bee

Goldsmith claimed to be this (and I suppose professionally, as a creator of compilations, he was). The bee is much like the cow, flitting from flower to flower, sampling nectar and turning it into delicious honey. The main difference between the cow and the bee is that the cow is a little slow, meditative and ponderous, whereas the bee is a happy flitter.

Fox

This is where I’d place myself. The fox is a true omnivore, eating the rubbish out of bins, blackberries from the hedgerows and even catching a few small rodents. The fox may have preferences and favourite wheezes, if they find a poorly-guarded henhouse they will have a feast but if they happen to find a half-full KFC bucket on the floor, they’ll go for that also. Nothing is off limits with chance and circumstance dictating what they eat.

Snake

The snake has one big meal every few months which they take weeks to digest. They’ll gobble it up in one gulp and then lay prone as their body chemistry does the rest. The snake reader may not be widely read, but they’ll be well read.

Mouse

The mouse if the opposite of the snake, they need to gnaw and gnaw or their teeth will grow to long and penetrate their head. They always have a book on the go, probably several, but will only attack it in little nibbles. (The squirrel is a similar beast, but will buy books, put them on shelves and forget about them).

Koala

Have you every looked at a genre book in a library and seen a mark, picture or initials by it? These are leftovers of the koala reader, who certainly existed when I was younger but may be becoming endangered. They are rapacious, putting away book after book but these books are often rather samey and of low nutritional value. They’ve marked the book because they’ve read so many similar ones they wouldn’t know if they’d read them without the mark.

Pampered Pet

These are those who read all the hot new releases or awards winners. Their diet consists of beautifully packaged, presented meals that are put in a bowl and placed in front of them. They are told that these meals are carefully created from the finest ingredients - even if it looks like slop a lot of the time.

Bowerbird

This creature uses books to decorate and make themselves look more attractive. They’d never actually consume the things though.

So, just a silly little thought. Are there any reading style/ animal pairings I’ve missed? Answers in the comments, I suppose.