Hot books to sex up sales

<div class="section1"><div class="Normal">LONDON: In a bid to lure men in away from TV football matches and into book shops, publisher Penguin Books will send out a sexy model to offer £1,000 prizes to males spotted reading a selected title.<br /><br />The publicity ploy, launched on Monday, aims to boost sales among men, who on average buy fewer books than women.<br /><br />"It''s to sex up the book industry, which probably needs it, but also to address the more serious issue that reading has fallen off the radar of younger men," said Neil Griffiths, author of Penguin-published <span style="" font-style:="" italic="">Betrayal</span> in Naples.Penguin''s so-called Good Booking Girl will canvass the streets this month for men older than 16 years reading versions of Nick Hornby''s <span style="" font-style:="" italic="">31 Songs</span> that bear a special cover sticker. <br /></div> <div align="center" style="position:relative; left: -1"><table cellspacing="0" cellpadding="2" align="center" border="1" width="75.4%"> <colgroup> <col width="100.0%" /> </colgroup> <tr valign="top"> <td width="100.0%" colspan="1" rowspan="1" style="" valign:="" top="" background-color:="" white=""> <div class="Normal"><span style="" color:="" ba0000="" font-weight:="" bold="">Mad About Books? Mad About Writing? </span><br />Discuss Books. Contribute stories and poems. Post your top 3 all-time great books ever! <a href="http://people.indiatimes.com/articleshow/719429.cms" target="_blank">Click here</a><span style="" font-size:="" font-weight:="" bold=""> </span>Also, irresistible offers on books <a href="http://people.indiatimes.com/articleshow/719429.cms" target="_blank">Click here</a></div> </td> </tr> </table></div> <div class="Normal"><br />A different title will be chosen each month.<br /><br />At the same time, Penguin, a unit of Pearson, released results of a poll in which an amazing 85 per cent of women said a man could increase his chances of getting a date by talking about a favourite book. <br /><br />By contrast, more than half the men polled said they believed that flattering a woman would suffice to impress her. An accompanying Good Booking chart of 40 books recommends such lad-friendly Penguin titles as Anthony Burgess'' violence-filled <span style="" font-style:="" italic="">A Clockwork Orange</span>.</div> </div>