Of the recent trends with books and reading, few charm me more than the idea of going on a blind date with a book. Bookshops and libraries have embraced this idea, setting up hopeful readers with potential matches. All it takes is a willing heart and a short commitment of time.
How does it work? Booksellers and librarians select titles and wrap them like gifts. There is usually some information given about genre, either written on the package or on an attached gift card. You select the book mostly at random: if you don’t care for chick lit or Westerns, you can skip those, so there is some control. But at some point you have to select a package and open it. Then you make the commitment to read it.
I’ve never had the opportunity to do the real blind book date, but I think it can be improvised. So long as you have a heap of unread books, you can do it.
I recently was set up on a first blind date with a book. From my digital files of 445 unread books, I selected the random number of 222. To ensure that I wasn’t tainting the process, I asked an unknowing aquaintence to pick the number.
Scrolling through the list, I discovered this book at 222:
A topic for another blog is the insane number of unread books that I own. 445 is a lot. But in this case numbers work to my advantage because there was a genuinely random quality to this choice. If I asked all my friends to set me up on a real blind date, I’m not sure the potential pool would be higher than that.
I don’t know why I bought this title. Most likely I read an enthusiastic review on a book blog. It is fiction, which suits me. Its theme of corporate downsizing is relatable. I’m sure it had many glowing blurbs urging me to give it a whirl.
So will this be a love connection or a bust? Find out next week!
Books Smitten 