{"id":107,"date":"2016-04-23T21:29:29","date_gmt":"2016-04-23T09:29:29","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/araopenpages.com\/?p=107"},"modified":"2016-04-23T21:36:39","modified_gmt":"2016-04-23T09:36:39","slug":"blind-date-with-a-book","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/araopenpages.com\/?p=107","title":{"rendered":"blind date with a book"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"bookworm<\/p>\n

Every time I see photos online of brown paper wrapped books with vague descriptions, I tell myself that if I ever come across a shop that’s selling books in that way, I’m going to pick one up. I honestly thought the likelihood of that happening would be zero. But for the first time ever, I did in fact come across a shelf of these books in a small bookstore in Sydney.<\/p>\n

Obviously, I stopped and tried to figure out what the books were based on the descriptions.<\/p>\n

\"blind<\/p>\n

To my amusement, my husband and I both noticed the one book that appealed to me – and he talked me into buying it.<\/p>\n

This week, I just took part in my first ever “blind date with a book”.<\/p>\n

\"blind<\/p>\n

The description on the brown paper was very me – “sci-fi”, and “fantasy”, and “a modern classic” – all things that appeal to me. All genres and types of books that I generally adore. But for the life of me, I could not put together what book was under that paper. Believe you me, I tried.<\/p>\n

I really, really<\/em> tried.<\/p>\n

\"blind<\/p>\n

My “blind date book” turned out to be Cloud Atlas<\/em>, which I have never read. I will admit to never having seen the movie either – and until this moment, had no desire to. But now? Now I am more than a little intrigued about the story.<\/p>\n

\"cloud<\/p>\n

The entire experience got me thinking that it can be so weird how we choose books to read. I know a lot of times I pick up books based on their covers. I know we’re told never to judge a book by it’s cover, but the prettier the cover, the more likely I will check out the synopsis. But in this case, all I had going for me were a bunch of seemingly disjointed and disconnected phrases and words.<\/p>\n

And still, my interest was snagged.<\/p>\n

\"blind<\/p>\n

A large part of me wants to do this again. Somehow, someway, I want to choose to read a book, not based on the cover or the synopsis, but simply from a vague and disjointed description. To be quite honest, I have a few ideas on how to go on about this, but I’d need to find more like-minded people. Having to track down bookstores or libraries that carry out this practice is tedious, and I’m sure the online book blogging community would appreciate a way to participate in such a thing.<\/p>\n

Or at least, I know I’d love to participate in such a thing.<\/p>\n

I’ve been discussing my ideas with a friend – and if I can iron out a few details and smooth out a few snags, this may become a monthly feature. What do you think? Should we attempt online blind dating with books? Would anybody be interested in taking a chance on books with me? Let me know, please, because I’m definitely up for it!<\/p>\n

\"2016-04-12<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Every time I see photos online of brown paper wrapped books with vague descriptions, I tell myself that if I ever come across a shop that’s selling books in that way, I’m going to pick one up. I honestly thought the likelihood of that happening would be zero. But for the first time ever, I did in fact come across a shelf of these books in a small bookstore in Sydney. Obviously, I stopped and tried to figure out what the books were based on the descriptions. To my amusement, my husband and I both noticed the one book that appealed to me – and he talked me into buying it. This week, I just took part in my first ever “blind date with a book”. The description on the brown paper was very me – “sci-fi”, and “fantasy”, and “a modern classic” – all things that appeal to me. All genres and types of books that I generally adore. But for the life of me, I could not put together what book was under that paper. Believe you me, I tried. I really, really tried. My “blind date book” turned out to be Cloud Atlas, which I have never read. I will admit to never having seen the movie either – and until this moment, had no desire to. But now? Now I am more than a little intrigued about the story. The entire experience got me thinking that it can be so weird how we choose books to read. I know a lot of times I pick up books based on their covers. I know we’re told never to judge a book by it’s cover, but the prettier the cover, the more likely I will check out the synopsis. But in this case, all I had going for me were a bunch of seemingly disjointed and disconnected phrases and words. And still, my interest was snagged. A large part of me wants to do this again. Somehow, someway, I want to choose to read a book, not based on the cover or the synopsis, but simply from a vague and disjointed description. To be quite honest, I have a few ideas on how to go on about this, but I’d need to find more like-minded people. Having to track down bookstores or libraries that carry out this practice is tedious, and I’m sure the online book blogging community would appreciate a way to participate in such a thing. Or at least, I know I’d love to participate in such a thing. I’ve been discussing my ideas with a friend – and if I can iron out a few details and smooth out a few snags, this may become a monthly feature. What do you think? Should we attempt online blind dating with books? Would anybody be interested in taking a chance on books with me? Let me know, please, because I’m definitely up for it!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[63],"tags":[68,69,66,67,70,64,59],"class_list":["post-107","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-discussion-post","tag-blind-date-with-a-book","tag-book-blind-date","tag-bookworm-things","tag-cloud-atlas","tag-david-mitchell","tag-discussion","tag-writings"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/araopenpages.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/107","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/araopenpages.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/araopenpages.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/araopenpages.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/araopenpages.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=107"}],"version-history":[{"count":30,"href":"https:\/\/araopenpages.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/107\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":142,"href":"https:\/\/araopenpages.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/107\/revisions\/142"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/araopenpages.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=107"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/araopenpages.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=107"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/araopenpages.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=107"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}