Bibliography VIII

“Mr Penumbra’s 24-Hour Bookstore” – Robin Sloan

It’s not often that I laugh out loud while reading a book. Humour is brutally hard to write, yet the narrator in this whimsical offering is naturally funny. And endearing. And determined. Clay Jannon is an unemployed twentysomething geek who, out of sheer desperation, takes a job as the night clerk at Mr. Penumbra’s 24-Hour Bookstore. With hours to kill and only a few regular customers, he notices something a little odd about the set up and sets out to solve the puzzle. His curiosity takes him and his friends on a quest to discover the secret of immortality.

But is it a mystery? A comedy? A fairy tale? An adventure story?

My impression is that it’s all of the above, with maybe a couple of other items thrown in to make it … well, it can’t get much more interesting. While it’s not exactly an edge-of-your-seat suspense novel, it’s most certainly an engaging read. Clay is a wonderful character, and his world is a beautifully rendered blend of modern day technology and the old-fashioned (dare I say) values of friendship, loyalty and generosity. His narrative is smooth and easy to read, his humour is genuinely amusing, and his friends, just like everybody else, are products of their age. The girl of his dreams works at Google. His roommate is a model builder at Industrial Light and Magic. His best friend from childhood started a computer digital imaging company out of college and has already made his first million.

And then there’s Penumbra, the elderly keeper of the bookstore and member of an ancient fellowship called the Unbroken Spine. This group has spent years searching for the secret of immortality that is supposedly buried in the 15^th century memoir of their founder, but until Clay comes to work for Mr. Penumbra, they’ve been doing it the hard way:

Without technology.

Clay and his buddies get on the trail and stick with it until they reach the logical end … and while the trip itself is a veritable hoot, the treasure that waits at the logical end is purely magical.

It’s a statement of the author’s talent that I haven’t even mentioned his name or given him credit for spinning this sparkling story. Congrats to Robin Sloan for creating such vivid characters and letting them loose in this truly absorbing story. For all the reasons stated above, I absolutely loved his book and will keep it around for a second run at some point in the future. It’s a real gem that’s worth more than one round.