Blind Date with a Book

A few weeks ago I had a unique book-buying experience – I bought a book without seeing the title, the author, the blurb, and most importantly the cover!

As I have said before, I am a constant breaker of the “don’t judge a book by its cover” rule. Cover art is an area which can make or break a book for me, and sometimes I worry that I’m missing excellent reads because of this superficiality.

That’s why when I saw a picture advertising a new Blind Date with a Book promotion at one of my favorite bookstores, Kaleido Books, I thought I should give it a go 🙂

Thanks to the admin on Kaleido Books’ Facebook page for letting me use this image – go check them out and give them likes if you like your bookstores funky, creative and manned by awesomely friendly staff 🙂

As I am forgetful, sort of lazy and prone to procrastination (endearingly so I hope :)) I likely would’ve missed out on the promotion if I hadn’t seen another Facebook post reminding people to come in because it was the last day and there was only a few books left. I went in that day after work and faced my options with the typical mix of feelings encountered on a blind date – excitement, trepidation, and lack of control. What greeted me was a few lonely singles sitting patiently on the display table, clad in plain brown paper or newspaper, with a few choice keywords on their front, and just the price and a purchase code of some kind on the back.

My biggest fear was that I would pick a book with tantalising keywords only to find out I had already read it, or even worse, I already owned it since I have so many books (ahem….possibly too many but at least it’s a relatively healthy addiction) so my first thought was to get something that sounded up my alley, yet somehow also different from what I normally buy.

Then I saw this intriguing number:

I thought to myself “I like weird books, I like funny books, and I don’t buy (or read) many true books. This could be my perfect match!”

Before I could talk myself out of it I took my Blind Date up to the counter, ready to jump head-first into judgement free book discovery and waited with bated breath as the helpful Kaleido guy rang up my purchases (I also bought a Graphic Novel :P)

My non-blind date: Scott Pilgrim Volume 1: Precious Little Life by Bryan Lee O’Malley

I became even more intrigued when after looking up it’s mysterious purchase number he chuckled to himself and said “You’ll like this one!”

I stood there thinking “Oh gosh I hope so. What if I somehow do own it? What if it’s about a topic that may be weird, true and funny, but that totally doesn’t appeal to me? What if we can’t make it work!”

To further keep me in suspense my Kaleido match-maker took a black pen (as his trusty Sharpie had gone walkabout) and obscured the book’s details on my receipt

With my enigmatic blind date snugly tucked in my bag I left Kaleido Books and mere minutes and metres later I tentatively  opened the plain, brown paper to reveal my mystery book:

Stiff: The Curious Life of Human Cadavers by Mary Roach

A book about the various uses of dead bodies!

Weird? Oh yeah!

True? Yes, indeedy!

Funny? I can only imagine!

A perfect match for me? Absolutely! 🙂

I had heard of Blind Date with a Book promotions before, either in bookstores or in libraries as part of Library Lover’s Day, and thought it was a cracking idea but I had never encountered it myself. I’m so glad that I took the plunge and discovered a book I probably wouldn’t have looked twice at otherwise.

I say hurrah to Kaleido Books for choosing to do this promotion and I hope it will become a semi-regular occurrence! 😀

May all your blind dates (book and otherwise) be perfect matches 🙂