Feeling Adventurous? Try a Blind Date With a Book

On Valentine's Day, a tweet from Morristown High School librarian Debra Gottsleben caught our attention. It read:

We're doing a blind date with a book in our library today! Response has been very enthusiastic!

It sounded interesting, but we had no idea what it meant, so we googled "blind date with a book." Turns out that librarians all over the country  do a really fun thing on Valentine's day. They wrap-up a selection of books in gift paper and display them in a prominent places in their libraries. No hints are given as to the books' identities.

Patrons are encouraged to go on "blind dates" with unknown books. Some librarians post cute little signs on the books inspired by heart candies, like, "Take a chance on me," or "EZ to love." The idea is to introduce readers to authors and genres that they might not have previously considered. A dedicated romance reader could find herself checking out an autobiography while a history buff might end up with the latest page-turner.

It occurred to us that this idea could provide an appealing twist to the go-to escape plan for generations of harried individuals: getting lost in a book. So, next time you need to get away from it all, but a weekend at the spa won't work for your schedule or your budget, take a trip to the library and pick up a book you normally wouldn't look at twice. Who knows–you just might fall in love.

Need some ideas? These are the current Amazon.com bestsellers in a variety of genres.

Travel: "Eat, Pray, Love: One Woman's Search for Everything Across Italy, India and Indonesia," by Elizabeth Gilbert.

Biography: "Unbroken: A World War II Story of Survival, Resilience, and Redemption," by Laura Hillenbrand 

Entertainment: "Sh*t My Dad Says," by Justin Halpern 

American Drama: "Who Is He To You," by Monique D. Mensah 

Action-adventure fiction: The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest Stieg Larsson 

Family Saga: Cutting for Stone, by Abraham Verghese

Horror: KILLER by Stephen Carpenter

Vampire fiction: Dead as a Doornail (Southern Vampire Mysteries, Book 5), by Charlaine Harris.

Business: How the West Was Lost: Fifty Years of Economic Folly—and the Stark Choices Ahead, by Dambisa Moyo

Historical Biographies: Cleopatra: A Life, by Stacy Schiff

Finance: Too Big to Fail: The Inside Story of How Wall Street and Washington Fought to Save the Financial System—and Themselves, by Andrew Ross Sorkin