Mr. Penumbra's 24-Hour Bookstore
Top 3 in Top 10 Best Magical Realism Novels
Clay Jannon's existence as a San Francisco Web-design drone has been shoved out by the Great Recession, and chance, pure curiosity, and the ability to climb a ladder like a monkey have secured him a new job working the night shift at Mr. Penumbra's 24-Hour Bookstore. However, after only a few days on the job, Clay realizes that this establishment is far stranger than the name indicates. There are just a few customers, yet they come infrequently and never appear to buy anything, instead of checking out impossibly obscure volumes from odd nooks of the store, all as part of some complicated, long-standing deal with the gnomic Mr. Penumbra.
Clay thinks that the business must be a front for something bigger, and soon he's gone on a detailed analysis of the customers' behavior and enlisted the support of his buddies to find out what's going on. However, when they present their discoveries to Mr. Penumbra, they discover that the mysteries stretch well beyond the bookstore's boundaries.
Robin Sloan has crafted a literary adventure story for the twenty-first century with irresistible brio and dazzling intelligence, 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 is rare in the world of literary fiction. Mr. Penumbra's 24-Hour Bookstore is exactly what it sounds like: a place you must visit and will never want to leave, a modern-day cabinet of wonders ready to energize any eager reader at any time of day.
Detailed information:
Author: Robin Sloan
Link to read: goodreads.com/book/show/13538873-mr-penumbra-s-24-hour-bookstore
Clay thinks that the business must be a front for something bigger, and soon he's gone on a detailed analysis of the customers' behavior and enlisted the support of his buddies to find out what's going on. However, when they present their discoveries to Mr. Penumbra, they discover that the mysteries stretch well beyond the bookstore's boundaries.
Robin Sloan has crafted a literary adventure story for the twenty-first century with irresistible brio and dazzling intelligence, 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 is rare in the world of literary fiction. Mr. Penumbra's 24-Hour Bookstore is exactly what it sounds like: a place you must visit and will never want to leave, a modern-day cabinet of wonders ready to energize any eager reader at any time of day.
Detailed information:
Author: Robin Sloan
Link to read: goodreads.com/book/show/13538873-mr-penumbra-s-24-hour-bookstore
