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

Robin Sloan

Oct 2012 · Sold by Farrar, Straus and Giroux

About this ebook

A gleeful and exhilarating tale of global conspiracy, complex code-breaking, high-tech data visualization, young love, rollicking adventure, and the secret to eternal life—mostly set in a hole-in-the-wall San Francisco bookstore

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.

With irresistible brio and dazzling intelligence, Robin Sloan has crafted a literary adventure story for the twenty-first century, evoking both the fairy-tale charm of Haruki Murakami and the enthusiastic novel-of-ideas wizardry of Neal Stephenson or a young Umberto Eco, but with a unique and feisty sensibility that's rare to the world of literary fiction. Mr. Penumbra's 24-Hour Bookstore is exactly what it sounds like: an establishment you have to enter and will never want to leave, a modern-day cabinet of wonders ready to give a jolt of energy to every curious reader, no matter the time of day.

Ratings and reviews

It is all of the right words. It has a pedigree of Murakami and Eco. I'm a Google fanboy. I even dabble in web design and my brother reminds reminds me of Mat. I play Dungeons & Dragons. But it's just buzz words. It lacks depth and sincerity. It feels as though Sloan moved to San Francisco and wanted to show how well they fit in. All of the elements were there, but they, sadly, failed to impress. Please continue to write, and with gusto, but aim for sincerity and depth, not just shiny words.

Anti-climatic, poorly written, the main character has no charisma...pile these problems in a blender and you have a book that is a pain to get through. The plot description seems interesting enough, but the reader quickly finds that what could have been a fun, magical journey with relevant technology references becomes a badly executed story that I found myself skimming just to get to the end (for which, I don't even know why I cared---it was, as expected, dismal.) Save yourself the money and time...this felt like a creative writing exercise done by a high school student.

I went into this book without knowing anything about it, it turned out to be a wonderful surprise and become one of my favourite books. The characters are fantastic, diverse, multi-layered and introduced in very different sceneries making the book dynamic and very fun to read. The story is interesting and even moving, I just couldn't put it down until I finished it. Another thing that I loved about this book was he cover (this one in particular). Not only is it beautiful in it’s simplicity, It was awesome to discover, completely by accident, that it also glows in the dark.

About the author

Robin Sloan grew up in Michigan and now splits his time between San Francisco and the Internet. He is the author of Mr. Penumbra's 24-Hour Bookstore and Sourdough.