Our Picks for Blind Date with a Book

Have you gone on a blind date with a book? A perfect premise for Valentine's Day, the set-up for the display is simple: just wrap books in paper to hide their covers — hence the "blind date" — and decorate the wrapping with enticing facts, hints about the plotline, or our favorite, the books' first lines.

Of course, to get patrons to want to pick up these blind dates, you need books with attention-grabbing first lines. Here are 15 of our favorites for adult readers. Do you have others? Share them in the comments.

Image	1.  "Big Machine" by Victor LaValle   Spiegel and Grau, 2009 “Don’t look for dignity in public bathrooms.”
Image	2. "City of Glass" by Paul Auster Penguin Books, 1987 “It was a wrong number that started it, the telephone ringing three times in the dead of night, and the voice on the other end asking for someone he was not.”
Image	3. "The Crow Road" by Iain Banks Abacus, 1993 “It was the day grandmother exploded.”
Image	4. "Cat’s Eye" by Margaret Atwood Anchor Books, 1998 “Time is not a line but a dimension, like the dimensions of space.”
Image	5. "Eureka Street" by Robert McLiam Wilson Ballentine Books, 1999 “All stories are love stories.”
Image	6. "A Certain Slant of Light" Laura Whitcomb HMH Books For Young Readers, 2005 "Someone was looking at me, a disturbing sensation if you’re dead."
Image	7.  "Choke" by Chuck Palahniuk Anchor Books, 2002 “If you’re going to read this, don’t bother.”
Image	8. "Catch 22" by Josh Heller Simon & Schuster, 2004 “It was love at first sight. The first time Yossarian saw the chaplain he fell madly in love with him.”
Image	9.  "The Bell Jar" by Sylvia Plath Harper Perennial Modern Classics, 2006 "It was a queer, sultry summer, the summer they electrocuted the Rosenbergs, and I didn't know what I was doing in New York."
Image	10.  "Their Eyes Were Watching God" by Zora Neale Hurston Harper Perennial Modern Classics, 1937 “Ships at a distance have every man’s wish on board.”
Image	11. "The One" by John Marrs  Hanover Square Press, 2015 “Mandy stared at the photo on her computer screen and held her breath.”
Image	12.  "Sad Girls" by Lang Leav Andrew McMeel Publishing, 2017 “I was three weeks shy of eighteen when I was struck with the cruel affliction of anxiety.”
Image	13. "Call Me By Your Name" by André Aciman Atlantic Books, 2007 “'Later!' The word, the voice, the attitude.”
Image	14. "Fun Home" by Alison Bechdel  Mariner Books, 2006 “Like many fathers, mine could occasionally be prevailed on for a spot of ‘airplane.’”
Image	15. "Go Tell It On The Mountain" by James Bladwin Penguin, 2001 “Everyone had always said that John would be a preacher when he grew up, just like his father.”