Will 'blind dates' with books be a lasting bestseller for bookstores?

'Blind Date With a Book' masks a book's real cover and lets readers discover what's inside, and customers apparently love them.

- Hank Sanders

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 "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, best-selling or penned by a famous author.

"People love it," said Mr Paul Colarusso, Strand's communications director. "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," Mr 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.