Book Review: Mr Penumbra's 24-Hour Bookstore

“Neel takes a sharp breath and I know exactly what it means. It means: I have waited my whole life to walk through a secret passage built into a bookshelf.”

From Mr Penumbra's 24-Hour Bookstore By Robin Sloan

Mr Penumbra's 24-Hour Bookstore

By Robin Sloan

Desperation: The Great Recession has shuffled Clay Jannon out of his life as a San Francisco Web-design drone—and serendipity, sheer curiosity, and the ability to climb a ladder like a monkey has landed him a new gig working the night shift at Mr. Penumbra’s 24-Hour Bookstore. But after just a few days on the job, Clay begins to realize that this store is even more curious than the name suggests. There are only a few customers, but they come in repeatedly and never seem to actually buy anything, instead “checking out” impossibly obscure volumes from strange corners of the store, all according to some elaborate, long-standing arrangement with the gnomic Mr. Penumbra. The store must be a front for something larger, Clay concludes, and soon he’s embarked on a complex analysis of the customers’ behavior and roped his friends into helping to figure out just what’s going on. But once they bring their findings to Mr. Penumbra, it turns out the secrets extend far outside the walls of the bookstore (From Barnes and Noble).

Type of Literature: Realistic/Humor/Adventure Fiction

Why I Like It: What's not to like about a book, about the world of books? Okay - well - actually, that has potential to be really boring. This book, however, is almost everything except boring. As a book lover (as clearly seen in my last blog entry) this book warmed my heart. Not that the main character is a crazy book lover - he's not really much of a reader at all - but everything about this novel screams 'books are magical, read and find out for yourself!' The most wonderful part is that its message (yes, there's an explicit stated theme and strangely I'm more than happy about it) is not beaten over the readers head but woven subtly throughout it. But to get the something a little more concrete. The pacing is good, the characters unique and well developed, and the plot twists and turns into strange and unexpected places. I laughed out loud more than once because of the witty internal dialogue and well-place allusions. I mean, who wouldn't love a character who named his hamster Fluffy McFly? It's beyond me. This book is not just something a book lover should read. I can, without a single reservation, recommend this book to every person I know. It's worth the money (though you can wait for the softcover if you must). More than that, I will most likely read it again - and in a world where I have more books that I want to read than I'll ever find time to read that is saying more than a review ever could.