Two Styles of Readers

George thought of himself as being quite intelligent (he'd always gotten high scores on standardized tests), but he'd never been quick. He liked to read books slowly and carefully (he was virtually incapable of skimming), with frequent pauses to think about what he had just read; Lizzie devoured books, one after another, like a chain-smoker with her cigarettes. She was like a lightning streak across the sky, picking up and remembering odd and interesting facts about whatever interested her, and a lot did. George would never call Lizzie a deep thinker, but, boy, she was the ideal Trivial Pursuit or Jeopardy! partner. George was frequently srprised at what Lizzie knew or didn't know. Perfectly ordinary facts like what latitude meant were beyond her, while the sort of minuscule details of someone's life—the name of Albert Einstein's first wife (it was Mileva Einstein-Maricé, George learned from Lizzie—were on the tip of her tongue.

Nancy Pearl, George & Lizzie (New York: Touchstone, 2017), p. 209