The intimacy of dating a book
By: Milagros Wade
“War-ravaged Colonel”, “Post Second World War”, “Venice, Italy”, “An Italian countess”, “Vintage Classics, 1950”. Those phrases leaned me towards the third book on the second shelf, where another four —also wrapped in brown paper— seduced the curious customers with their own hints: “African fantasy”, “Long Island”, “A killer ready to strike again ” and the “Great American Dream” were some of them. The young blonde couple standing behind me was still debating theirs. “It's for my mother-in-law's birthday", Katy answered me mischievously. This was also their first time buying this idea of “blind date with a book”. We were in Elizabeth 's Bookshops, one of Australia's most famous second-hand bookshops and the original home of this newfangled concept.
My euphoria to know who I had matched with was about to burst out from my body as a birthday's boy balloon so, as soon as I reached the bookstore's corner, I opened it. My date was Ernest Hemingway, with his novel Across the River and Between the Trees (1950). The perfect opportunity to redeem myself after I stood him up a few years ago with A moveable Feast (1964), lost in a move. "You love me, you just don't know it yet," Hemingway once said. Can't wait to find it out, Ernest…
The literary initiative of “Blind date with a book” began in 2013, thanks to an innovative and intelligent bookstore "with extra time on her hands”, says Alexandra Taylor, Elizabeth's Bookshop's sole director. While working at the store in Newtown, Sydney, the bookseller wrapped up a couple of titles, wrote handwritten clues on them about their contents and put them up for sale. The clients' reaction was instantaneous: they were sold out in a matter of days. An irresistible mix of mystery, curiosity and innovation in the shopping experience were the main reasons of this concept's success, still traceable today with their number of sales, "more than 200 books per week", says Taylor.
Whether for oneself —as was my case— or to surprise someone, the “blind date with a book” is an unprecedented gift: it places the recipient and the buyer in the same uncertainty, taking the pressure away from the latter to choose the "correct" book for his/her honoree and enjoy, instead, the noble gesture of gifting such a precious and ever-lasting thing as a book. Souvenirs are also a frequent reason for purchase in this initiative, both for tourists —main consumers of this idea— and for wedding guests, which requires a greater volume of orders and high production costs, according to Alexandra Taylor. “Maintaining a regular chain of supply is always an issue and very time-consuming. It's hard work, but we still enjoy the concept and are proud of it", she concludes.
Elizabeth's Bookshops has over 400,000 books in stock. Photo: MW
The romanticism that the "blind date with a book" concept entails is almost Shakespearean: the possibility of finding the love-book of your life not because of its appearance or its author, but because of what fate and the personality of its hints dictate. A moral lesson that we've heard so many times in the metaphoric phrase "never judge a book by its cover", first enunciated in 1860 by the English writer Mary Ann Evans (better known by her pseudonym, George Eliot), in her novel "The Floss Mill". It was then repeated infinite times over the years, applied in many ways and circumstances. Even the American band Oddisee made a song in 2015 about it: “Book covers”, which says “Don't judge a book by its cover if you don't even read [...] Have a discussion, stop your assumptions, you know me best”. However, in this case, metaphors are not necessary: that phrase is the model's most accurate slogan.
"Imitation is the greatest form of flattery," said Alexandra Taylor, referring to the idea's worldwide popularity. Photo: MW
“There is something comical, yet beautiful in treating books in such a humane manner; thinking of them as a love interest breathes life into the art of writing: we can fall in love with it just like with a romantic partner,” said Cameron Beech, in the UK's Palatinate Newspaper. Tempting, isn't it?
Well, it is also tempting in commercial terms: increased book sales from this initiative give libraries, bookstores, and publishers a great opportunity to showcase wonderful but low-profile titles and authors, expand audience ranges, attract new consumers and subscribers, and even re- distribute those copies stacked at the back of the stores, their eco-friendly aspect. This was the one-way ticket with which the model took off from Australia to the world ten years ago and the reason why it continues touring international shelves nowadays: the United States, Canada, Mexico, Colombia, Spain, France, Germany and England are some of them.
In most countries, the "blind date with a book" is a temporary initiative, where businesses and institutions incorporate it in special occasions throughout the year, like Valentine's Day (February 14th), for example; the perfect annual excuse to revindicate the love for literature and bring new and more readers closer to it. In February 2023, Spain was the concept's mecca —in its non-profit version and with clear educational purposes—, which crossed the country from north to south: from the Llanera Public Library (Asturias), passing through the Official School of Languages in Soria (Valladolid) to the Municipal Library of La Línea in Cádiz and the network of Libraries in San Roque (Andalucia). Apart from lending books disguised with this innovation, the Llanera Library even offered users a heart-shaped bookmark, personally made by the library staff. Another variation of the idea occurred in Mexico, organized by the Municipal Institute of Art and Culture (IMAC): they called on citizens to wrap their own book, think about the clues and then exchange them with each other.
The undisputed cupids of this “blind date with a book” are the booksellers or librarians, who think and manually wrap each of the books based on many criteria: their recommendations, one of the main. That is why they are crucial actors in this initiative, which highlights their role within the bookstore and their character as an expert in the field even more. “We don't want to be a book vending machine. We want to accompany, advise and recommend not-so-known authors… And so the clients trust”, said to the Verne newspaper Tomás García, staff member of "La casa del Libro" in Alicante. Based on their wrapped suggestions, readers —in an act of blind faith— explore new possibilities, mostly outside the editorial claim, leaving their literary comfort zone. According to García, the bookseller-cupid's arrow hits the target most of the time: customers even come back and "ask who selected the one they took to ask for more recommendations."
But what about those failed dates? “If it turns out that the person has already read the book, they can bring it back and take another one. You don't have to keep a duplicate,” says Beth, bookseller at the Elizabeth's Bookshops in Fremantle. However, if the problem radicates in Orwell's plot, Fitzgerald's prose or Virginia Woolf's way of seeing things, well, there isn't much to do. Literature and life aren't easy.