Toward the beginning of the year, during the time of New Year resolutions, I made the decision that I would start taking reading seriously again. It wasn’t that I’d stopped reading completely, it was just that I didn’t focus on it. I would often leave my books at home to make room in my bag for other things. It would take me months to finish even a short novel, if I finished one at all. In an effort to continue to read without breaking the bank or my bad, I tried to find a platform for cheap ebooks. A google search triggered an ad on facebook for an app called Scribd where, for a small monthly fee I could read or listen to any available books or audiobooks on their platform. There was some sort of promotion at the time that got me to sign up, but since I have I’ve been paying monthly for the subscription and don’t really have any regrets about it. The app syncs my books and progress in them across my devices and the app is compatible with my apple car play so I can listen to my audiobooks on the go.
But I didn’t come here to write about how great Scribd has been to me, I came here to write about a book I found on there that wasn’t what I thought it would be in the best way. It is a novel by Robin Sloan called Mr. Penumbra’s 24-Hour Bookstore.
Mr. Penumbra’s 24-Hour Bookstore is set in the city of SanFrancisco in what is seemingly a not-so-distant future. The country is in a Great Recession and it seems like the large tech companies are the only ones able to keep their heads above water as the economy continues to collapse wiping out a majority of smaller businesses. In the midst of it all we meet Clay Jannon, an ex-website builder just trying to find a job in an economically turbulent time. An outdoor walk led Clay to the “help wanted” sign plastered in the window of this tall but narrow building, the sign outside reading Mr. Penumbra’s 24-Hour Bookstore. Clay enters to find a shop with rows and rows of vertical bookshelves going up so high that the ability to climb a ladder like a monkey is a literal job requirement. Clay snags a job as the night clerk of this establishment, but his only customers in the odd hours of night that he works are total weirdos that come in jabbering about some books with nonsensical titles. Despite the fact that Clay’s employer, Penumbra himself, had only one rule- Clay breaks that rule and attempts to read one of the books, only to find that it’s written in some sort of strange code. In fact, they’re all written in codes.
And that is when the real adventure begins as Clay uncovers the existence of a cult called The Unbroken Spine, a secret society dedicated to unlocking the secrets of each of the Codex Vitae and discovering the secrets to immortality. Old age collides with new as Clay, Penumbra, and a small gang of coders use everything from books and scanners to the Google supercomputer in an effort to unlock the secrets of these books.
Robin Sloan’s writing is fantastic, and the book’s nerdy elements and references makes the narrator feel like a familiar. Like a friend telling you a story. And the story in the pages of Mr. Penumbra’s 24-Hour Bookstore is one I definitely recommend you reading for yourself. I believe I might give it a second or third read of my own.
Amazon:
https://www.amazon.com/Mr-Penumbras-24-Hour-Bookstore-Novel/dp/1250037751/ref=nodl_
Barnes & Noble:
https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/mr-penumbras-24-hour-bookstore-robin-sloan/1108946314
Scribd:
https://www.scribd.com/book/182550567/Mr-Penumbra-s-24-Hour-Bookstore-A-Novel
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