(Mat Barrett/northeastNOW Staff)

By Mat Barrett

Blind Date With a Book

‘Read out of your comfort zone’: Melfort Library begins ‘Blind Date With a Book’

Feb 1, 2020 | 12:00 PM

For the month of February, the Melfort Public Library is giving their readers a bit of a surprise.

‘Blind Date With a Book’ started on Friday, Jan. 31 and will run until Feb. 29. Readers come to the library and can see the various ‘dressed up’ books. They pick one without knowing anything about the book, according to Head Librarian Penny Markland.

“We do have some pretty nice pickup lines on the front of the bags, which are pretty cute and funny,” she said. “So, whichever one speaks to you, that’s the one you choose.”

They have also written the first line of the book on the back of the bag to help decide which book to take.

Readers take their ‘dates’ back home to read, and once done, they fill out the ‘rate your date’ slip that comes with the book.

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“You rate your date,” Markland said. “Whether your date was a dud, or whether you had a love connection.”

Once they return the slip, they’ll be entered for a chance to win a $50 gift card to a local restaurant.

Markland said they usually like to do this program every two years just to mix things up. This year most of the books have been published in 2019, so readers will get some fairly new reads as their dates.

“And part of the idea is to help you read out of your comfort zone,” Markland told northeastNOW. “Because sometimes people go ‘well I just read mysteries, and I’m not interested in reading anything else’. So, they might miss some really great reads that they might enjoy.”

She said it helps people “expand their horizons.”

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mat.barrett@jpbg.ca

On Twitter: @matbarrett