Review:Mr. Penumbra’s 24-hour Bookstore by Robin Sloane
Clay Jannon is out of work. He finds a job in a peculiar and appealing(to book worms) bookshop that stays open for 24 hours. It’s owned by a very strange man called Mr. Penumbra who gives Clay certain rules to abide by when he starts on his first day. But, all is not what it seems and Clay finds himself in a eccentric and nerdy world.
On first glance, you can take this book as a piece of popular fiction. We have interesting and quirky characters and a mystery plot. We have as romance. We have google. Lots of google. We have the evil enemy in the guise of the Fellowship of the Unbroken Spine. The plot and story kept me reading late into the night until the last section where it ended in a nicely sewn up way. i won’t give anything away.
However, this book is for book lovers. It is for that section of readers that prefer the book, the smell of the spine, the feel of each page between their fingers as opposed to the coldness of a kindle, the internet and the rise of google. Books becoming meanless code that can be fed into a computer or a big, google box to be churned out for meaning. These themes and messages kept me thinking, to be honest. It’s a real nerd’s book and a real bookshop lovers dream. A very cooly written book, where you will side with Clay and what he believes in, both of you passionate about the same thing-reading and books.
Mr. Penumbra’s 24-hour Bookstore by Robin Sloane is published by Atlantic Books.