A few weeks ago I took a trip to one of my favorite U.S. cities, Asheville, North Carolina. In between hikes in the Blue Ridge Mountains, strolls through the River Arts District and lazy river tubing down the French Broad River, I also found some time to pop into one of their local literary gems, Malaprop’s Bookstore.
My friends and I all went our separate ways into our own preferred book worlds; I found myself going back and forth to the new fiction section and the DIY stacks, but nothing seemed to tempt me until their “Blind Date with a Book” shelf caught my attention. Each book was wrapped in brown paper with the description, price and ISBN written on the front. No title or book cover was in plain sight. I chose a book with a description that fit nicely with my reading interests:
When I checked out my book, the sales clerk said that it was just like a blind date: If you don’t like it, you can always leave, aka, return or exchange your date. A fan of speed dating? Pick up a couple reads at once and see which one engages you the most within the first few pages. Genius idea!
I was so enamored with this concept and luckily, I ended up loving my choice (The Historian by Elizabeth Kostava)! After I returned home from Asheville I decided to do a little research on the “Blind Date with a Book” phenomenon and I made a wonderful discovery: there’s a website, Blind Date with a Book. If you can’t make it to a bookstore near you, you can certainly get your fix here (or you know, if you happen to be in the Australia area, check out Elizabeth’s Bookshops). Choose from escapist romance, catch the killer, art obsession, oedipal envy, erotica noir and many more.
I had such a wonderful first date that I couldn’t resist hooking up a few of our readers with a blind date of their own. This is a wonderfully unique way to take yourself out of your reading comfort zone and try something new.
So, because I loved it so much, 3 lucky readers will win their own Blind Date with a Book!
Click the image to enter to win!
