Can you judge a book by its cover?

My friend Annie is fabulous. She’s effortlessly chic, a little bit sassy, and the kind of cool that can’t be faked. She also happens to be hilarious - so witty that she catches you off guard and leaves you smiling long after the conversation’s moved on.

But when it comes to dating, she’s still searching for someone who truly gets her. She was telling me recently about one of the great mysteries of modern romance: the bookshelf. Apparently, when you’re dating, people don’t just check out your photos - they check out what you’re reading. Annie swears men will sometimes scatter a few carefully curated titles around their flat, ready to impress. A bit of Kitchen Confidential or Atomic Habits, maybe even a shiny hardback with “AI” or “Climate” propped open for good measure.

It made me laugh, but it also made me think. Do people really stage their bookshelves like Instagram backdrops? And if they do - does it work? Annie says she always looks. Not because she wants a man with a library that rivals Waterstones, but because books, she says, are little clues: what you value, your ambition, your sense of humour. And in a world of swipe-left or swipe-right, those clues matter.

But here’s the thing: just like dating apps, book covers can be misleading. Owning a book might not reflect who someone really is any more than a carefully filtered profile picture.

I realised I’d done exactly the same thing with my son, Milo. We’d gone to Waterstones to choose summer reads. My daughter picked out seven (of course), but Milo struggled to decide. I nudged him towards the classics, but he had his own ideas. He asked for Dogman by Dav Pilkey. Without thinking, I dismissed his choice straight away. “No, darling - not that one. You’re too bright for that. Pick a proper book.” I judged it by its cover: a silly book, written like a comic strip, all cartoons and chaos, not 'serious' enough to count as real reading. But I was wrong. The vocabulary was surprisingly rich. The storyline? Completely hilarious. And most importantly, it was the book that hooked him. Before Dogman, he’d happily build Lego for hours but never pick up a book, and after Dogman - he couldn’t get enough! That little comic-style book was the spark that lit his love of reading.

So, can you judge a book by its cover? Not entirely. Whether it’s profile photos on dating apps or children’s books that have never made it onto the class reading list, Annie reminds me that, just like in reading, the story underneath is what counts. A book can’t tell you if there will be chemistry. A glossy dust jacket doesn’t guarantee a great read - just as a guy holding a dog in his profile photo (that might not even be his) doesn’t prove he loves animals. What really counts is the spark - the connection that makes you want to swipe right or turn the page. Sometimes the most unexpected choice is the one that changes everything.

And maybe, that’s the kind of plot twist Annie’s waiting for.