Mr. Penumbra's 24-Hour Bookstore: A Novel by Robin Sloan

I really enjoyed this book. It was just plain fun for me to read, tickling my geeky, bookish fancy in all the right ways.

So basic premise is that out-of-work graphic artist/web designer gets job at a seriously different sort of bookstore. For starters, there's very little available stock, and even fewer customers to buy books. But the place stays open 24-hours a day. Why? Because there are customers who use a special section of the store as a sort of library, the books there mysterious, and in code.

So what's a geek to do, but try and figure it out. Add in several startups, google and other 21st century techno-stuff, and good old fashioned bibliotech, and it makes a good mix.  Lots of tongue in cheek (and out of cheek) humor there, too. And of course, every time something was mentioned as a google search or on Wikipedia, etc, I ran to my computer.

Happy czukie.


Edited July 27, 2014 to add that we listened to the audio-version of this book, which was delightful, had an additional clue, and the author, himself, read as the voice of Clark Moffat, the author of <i>The Dragon Song Trilogy</i> aka the book within a book plot element. Definitely fun. But now I want to read Moffat's books even more.  Or go back to San Francisco. Or a bookstore. Or Google. It's all a win.

Tags: audio, books-about-books, i-liked-it, places-i-have-been, read, thank-you-charleston-county-library, worth-the-reread