Community Corner
Butler Library Offers Blind Date With Books
Take advantage of Butler Library's "Blind Date with a Book" program this February.
Looking for a romantic evening, but sick of Match.com? Love is in the air with the 's "Blind Date With a Book" program until the end of the month.
Principal Library Assistant Margaret Assante explained the program. “For the month of February, we wrap books up in gift wrap and we put them on the shelf. Anyone who wants to take one out can pick up a book. They don’t know what they’re getting to read, so they just open it up and see if they like the book. It’s a surprise," she said.
Assante said the idea came from Mary Martin of the Long Hill Library in Gillette, NJ last year. Martin sent out an email to numerous libraries in the area about the success of the program in Long Hill. Kristen Talbot, program coordinator at the Butler Library, took it from there, putting together a list of books with Assante with a Valentine’s Day theme. Last year, the program ran from the first of the month until Valentine’s Day.
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It was so successful, that they did it again in the summer.
“We named it ‘Summer Vacation with a Book.’ It’s the same kind of idea. We just wrap it in a summery kind of wrapping paper and choose books that are beach-themed or summer-themed,” said Talbot.
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This time, the program will run for the entire month. This year’s list includes:
- The Sunday Philosophy Club by Alexander McCall Smith (creator of “The No.1 Ladies Detective Agency” series)
- A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens
- At First Sight by Nicholas Sparks
- Plum Lovin’ by Janet Evanovich
- The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde
Assante described the books as “just light reading. Not anything too heavy. Mostly fiction. It’s just for fun.”
“People like it very much because they are surprised to see what’s inside once they un-wrap the book. It gives them a chance to read something that, maybe, they wouldn’t normally pick themselves. Its good when they like it, and when they don’t it’s not a problem, they can just return it,” Talbot said.
Talbot joked, “The book’s feelings won’t be hurt.”
If you missed the program this year, be sure to watch out this summer for the “Summer Vacation with a Book” program.
