Shallow men & Sexy books

(Excerpt from Reuters) London - In a bid to lure men away from TV soccer games and into book shops, a British publisher will send out a sexy model to offer 1,000-pound prizes to males spotted reading a selected title. The publicity ploy aims to boost sales among men, who on average buy fewer books than women. "It's to sex up the book industry,'' says a British author.The so-called ''Good Booking Girl'' will canvass the streets this month for men older than 16 years reading versions of Nick Hornby's "31 Songs" that bear a special cover sticker. Meanwhile, results of a poll showed that 85 percent of women believe the chances of accept a date offer increase if the men talk about a great book. However, the poll also showed men had a different viewpoint. More than half of the polled men said said they believed that flattering a woman would suffice to impress her.