Bookstores are setting up readers on ‘blind dates’ with books

Never judge a book by its cover — even if the cover doesn’t say much at all.

The first thing customers see when they walk into the Strand Book Store in the Manhattan borough of New York City is a table of anonymous books with covers wrapped like Christmas presents and titles replaced by vague descriptions. The store calls it “Blind Date With a Book.”

“When in Rome” by Sarah Adams is disguised as “Freshly Baked Slow Burn Rom-com.” “Spoiler Alert” by Olivia Dade becomes a “You’ve Got Mail-esque Romance.” Sometimes a whimsical drawing accompanies the description.

Bookstores that have embraced “blind date books” say they are beloved by customers. People are attracted to the element of surprise, and stores have found a new way to sell books that are overlooked because they are not new, bestselling or penned by a famous author.

“People love it,” said Paul Colarusso, the communications director for the Strand. “We put it right at the front of the store because it quite literally stops people in their tracks.”

Before Valentine’s Day in 2022, the Strand started selling blind date books, a concept that had been popular in libraries and bookstores around the world for years. But as people kept buying them long after the month of love ended, the Strand added more genres, and blind date books became a mainstay.

Today, the “Blind Date With a Book” table is one of the Strand’s most popular offerings, competing with bestsellers and new releases from famous authors.

“It just kind of took off,” Colarusso said. “We were having trouble keeping them on the table, in fact, because they were so popular.”

Bookstores do blind date books in various ways. Some bookstores replace the title with that of a similar movie or book. “For fans of ‘Inception’” (or “American Psycho” or “1984”), a cover might read. Other bookstores write a vague description. A few do both.

“An agent and his drug sniffing dog find more than drugs in this page-turning mystery,” is handwritten on butcher paper on a book at The King’s English Bookshop in Salt Lake City. “For fans of Craig Johnson books.”

That’s a perfect blind date description: Just enough to pique interest yet vague enough to keep readers guessing what the book could be. Even ChatGPT was confused. When asked to guess what book that description might be alluding to, the artificial intelligence chatbot gave an inconclusive mirage of answers.

Blind date books are very popular because the element of surprise focuses attention and creates a dopamine response, said Vera Tobin, an associate professor of cognitive sciences at Case Western University.

Other bookstores that carry blind date books don’t feature them as prominently as the Strand does. Some shops relegate them to the second floor or stack them on bookcases along the wall. Even these placements do not stop blind date books from being incredibly popular around the country.

Blind date books are “a big hit” at Powell’s Books in Portland, Oregon, said Jeremy Solly, its director of marketing.

At Book Culture’s stores in New York City, such books sell “like gangbusters,” according to Cody S. Madsen, the store’s vice president of operations.

When Read Rose Books in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, “blind dates” a title, it doesn’t stay on the shelves long, according to Elizabeth Peters, one of the store’s owners.

But not all bookstores have embraced the trend. Dozens of bookstore owners around the country said they did not know what blind date books were. Others worry that it removes the dialogue that helps customers pick books. These conversations are “one of the most important parts of being an independent bookstore,” said Kristin Enola Gilbert of Exile in Bookville, in Chicago.

Mary Lyons, who has worked at Bluestocking Books in San Diego for 18 years, agrees. She calls herself “a matchmaker” and is intent on guiding her customers to their next great reads instead of letting them date books blindly.

Madsen saw the merit of this argument but said that a blind date book can spark conversation in its own way. Buyers at Book Culture, he said, often “walk right over to the info desk and ask questions about how we pick the books.”

A few bookstores also said they didn’t participate in the trend because store policy prohibits returns or exchanges, which are necessary if someone has picked up a book they have already read.

Buxton Books in Charleston, South Carolina, began selling blind date books seven years ago when the store’s owner, Polly Buxton, saw them at a small bookshop in Scotland.

At first, she was skeptical for the same reason many other bookstores don’t blind date books. Was this just a clever way for bookstores to “get rid of the overstock” that they don’t want, she wondered.

But when Buxton told her staff what she had seen, they loved the idea.

“We pledged that we would only blind date really good books,” Buxton said. “Our policy was and remains: We have no bad dates at Buxton.”

Picking a good blind date book is like threading a needle. The book should be excellent. It should not be a bestseller but should have broad enough appeal to intrigue whoever rips off the covering. The much anticipated Sally Rooney novel won’t work, and neither will a controversial book like “Lolita” or a niche self-published book about frogs.

Much like real dating, there’s no perfect science, and an element of trial and error is involved, booksellers said. Fantasy and mystery books often work well. Queer romance novels sell. Forgotten books from years of old are great too.

On a warm Friday morning, the Strand is packed. About half the customers stop at the “Blind Date With a Book” display by the entrance, closely inspecting the neatly drawn, wrapped covers. Heather Toner buys one.

“Throwing caution to the wind and letting someone else choose for me just sort of feels like a nice change of pace,” said Toner, an avid reader from Brooklyn. “I never went on a real blind date. ‘Blind Date With a Book’ is kind of my speed.”

This article originally appeared in The New York Times.

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