In February, librarians at the Whittier Public Library pulled 200 books off of the library shelves, 100 fiction and 100 non-fiction. All of these titles were favorably reviewed at some point in a professional journal (nothing but the best for our readers). Sixty-eight brave souls went on a blind date with one of these books. Here are the results:
Most of you were pretty good sports and were "intrigued" by the selection with which you wound up. A few of you were reading outside of your comfort zones and had less than favorable responses to the titles. And of course, there were the hopeless romantics who fell in love with their books at first sight.
Some of you were pleasantly surprised, some of you fell in love with a new author, and some of you hated the book with such a passion that when asked for a rating (1-5 in hearts, with 5 being the the best), you actually penciled in a heart with a zero in it just so you could communicate the intensity of your aversion to the selection. You just never know what you're going to get with a blind date, do you?
We asked you how likely you would be try this type of a book again. Your answers ranged from "Absolutely" (with a gushing book report on the back of the sheet) to "No Way" (circled in pen multiple times followed by vehement underlining). The majority of you were noncommittal, or shall we say open-minded, and gave a cagier answer of "probably" or "maybe." Here's the breakdown:
Judging a Book by its Cover
Some of you ripped open your brown-paper-covered book only to find yourselves less-than-impressed. Like all of us do at some point or another, you fell prey to that age-old cliche of judging a book by its cover. However, there were also those of you who know your own tastes and realized immediately that things were not going to work out.
You know you're curious. "Who" were all these books? Since we librarians are really nothing more than shameless book-pushers whose main goal in life is to entice you to read widely and voraciously, here's a list of the other fish in the sea. Maybe someone's disastrous date is your true love! Or maybe you were so enthralled by your first date, you want to see who else is out there waiting. Well, you know where to go for all of your matchmaking needs!
The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian by Sherman Alexie
The Adoration of Jenna Fox by Mary E. Pearson
Autobiography of a Fat Bride by Laurie Notaro
Blowing My Cover by Lindsay Moran
Burro Genius by Victor E. Villasenor
Cold Mountain by Charles Frazier
Coraline by Neil Gaiman
Dinner at the Homesick Restaurant by Anne Tyler
Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood by Rebecca Wells
Does My Head Look Big In This? by Randa Abdel-Fattah
Elsewhere by Gabrielle Zevin
Fidelity by Grace Paley
Following Atticus by Tom Ryan
From Russia with Love (James Bond) by Ian Fleming
The Ginger Tree by Oswald Wynd
Girl in Hyacinth Blue by Susan Vreeland
Gonzalez & Daughter Trucking Co A Road Novel With Literary License
by Maria Amparo Escandon
A Good Man Is Hard to Find by Flannery O'Connor
The Gum Thief by Douglas Coupland
Hole in My Life by Jack Gantos
How I Live Now by Meg Rosoff
In Cuba I Was a German Shepherd by Ana Mene?ndez
James Herriot's Animal Stories by James Herriot, Lesley Holmes
The Lilies of the Field by William E Barrett
Lit by Mary Karr
Little Brother by Cory Doctorow
The Lonely Polygamist by Brady Udall
The Long Snapper by Jeffrey Marx
March by Geraldine Brooks
Me and Hank: A Boy and His Hero, Twenty-Five Years Later
by Sandy Tolan
Me and My Dad: A Baseball Memoir by Paul O'Neill
Midnight Salvage by Adrienne Rich
Miss Julia Speaks Her Mind by Ann B. Ross
Mostly True: A Memoir of Family, Food, and Baseball by Molly O'Neill
Mrs. Mike by Benedict Freedman, Nancy Freedman
My Lucky Life In and Out of Show Business by Dick Van Dyke
Nom De Plume by Carmela Ciuraru
North to the Orient by Anne Morrow Lindbergh
Not without hope by Nick Schuyler
One More for the Road by Ray Bradbury
One Stick Song by Sherman Alexie
The Orchid Thief by Susan Orlean
The Parrot Who Thought She Was a Dog by Nancy Ellis-Bell
Peace Like a River by Leif Enger
The Pearl by John Steinbeck
Persuasion by Jane Austen
Positively 4th Street: The Lives and Times of Joan Baez, Bob Dylan, Mimi Baez Farina, and Richard Farina by David Hajdu
The Prize Winner of Defiance, Ohio by Terry Ryan
The Reading Promise: My Father and the Books We Shared
by Alice Ozma
A Reliable Wife by Robert Goolrick
Rumpole Rests His Case by John Mortimer
Running With Scissors by Augusten Burroughs
Sabriel by Garth Nix
Savage Beauty by Nancy Milford
The Sculptress by Minette Walters
The Secret Life of Bees by Sue Monk Kidd
Shattered Air by Adrian Esteban, Bob Madgic
Song of Myself by Walt Whitman
Sorta Like a Rockstar by Matthew Quick
Then We Came to the End by Joshua Ferris
This Book Is Overdue! by Marilyn Johnson
To See You Again: A True Story of Love in a Time of War
by Betty Schimmel
To The Pole: The Diary and Notebook of Richard E. Byrd
by Richard Evelyn Byrd
The Uncommon Reader by Alan Bennett
Vigils by Aline Kilmer
Whirligig by Paul Fleischman
The Whistling Season by Ivan Doig
