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

I found this via i09's list of best science fiction and fantasy books of 2012, which is funny, because it really isn't either. What it is, though, is a book for people who love science fiction and fantasy and books and technology. It reminds me of William Gibson's recent work, not because it's dystopian (it isn't, not even slightly), but because it's like science fiction set in the present. It's also beautifully written. I don't read "literary fiction". I'm a genre snob. But if this is literary fiction, then I like it. The metaphors and turns of phrase are wonderful. "Feeding hours like dry twigs into the fire," the author writes. He's conscious of language. "Moffat's prose is fine: clear and steady, with just enough sweeping statements about destiny and dragons to keep things well inflated," he says, describing the fictional fantasy novels which play such an important role in the plot, and it could almost be a description of his own writing. He also has semicolons, and he knows how to use them. There's humour that comes from an affectionate, almost loving, way of seeing the absurdity of the world, and from masterfully chosen, mostly technological juxtapositions. "The thinnest tendrils of dawn are creeping in from the east. People in New York are softly starting to tweet." Later, the protagonist's Googler girlfriend buys a New York Times "but couldn't figure out how to operate it". I only spotted a single typo ("left" instead of "loft"), and that level of professionalism is vanishingly rare. So: language, 5 stars. I wish every other book I've read recently was written more like this one. Plot, then. The plot is beautifully woven. Not a Chekhov's gun is left unfired. There are about 20 named characters, and virtually all of them, even most of the minor ones, get to participate in the great wrap-up of the epilogue. It's missing one element of the classic happy ending, but that feels absolutely right, and it's better than a happy ending: it's a beautiful ending. It's a rich, wonderful ending. I've often been disappointed by weak endings to books I've otherwise enjoyed, but this is one of my favourite endings of any book I can think of. Five stars for plot, even if the protagonist's ultimate triumph is built on an unlikely mistake earlier in the book, and even if a couple of the events are also unlikely (like Google allowing a relatively minor project to take all their server time for three seconds). And partway through it turns into a heist novel! I love heist novels. Characters. I liked the main character almost immediately. He's having a somewhat difficult time, but he has perspective and wry humour about it, and he doesn't whine. He's capable of admiring and respecting other people greatly, including intelligent, strong women: "I am really into the kind of girl you can impress with a prototype," he says. His love for his eccentric, elderly mentor is an important part of what drives the plot. The other characters are all quirky without being self-conscious about it, all (seen through the protagonist's eyes) people of skill and worth and, in general, goodwill. I loved every one of them. Five stars and at least three cheers for the characters. Finally, setting. The book takes place in some wonderfully bizarre places: a tall, narrow bookstore full of mysterious volumes, an underground cavern of cultish scholarship, a textile museum, a storage unit for museum artifacts in the dryness of Nevada where motorized shelves move constantly in a stately dance. That last was totally unlikely. Wouldn't you want to keep valuable, rare items still? And yet it the feel of it was just right, much more so than a more realistic, static building would have been. Even the protagonist's apartment gradually fills with his artist roommate's strange and wonderful miniature city. You could say that the setting is the real world, but you'd be wrong. Aldus Manutius existed, but his friend Gerritszoon didn't, and Gerritszoon's font isn't on every electronic device, because it doesn't exist either. Nor, presumably, does the cult of scholars known as the Unbroken Spine. I have no idea whether Google really works the way it's described, but it wouldn't surprise me at all to hear that it doesn't. And there's one very minor mistake that I know is a mistake: what the main character calls "middleware" is not what middleware actually is. No, this setting isn't the real world. It's better. Apart from anything else, it has the epic fantasy novels of Moffat in it. Five stars for the setting as well, making it a perfect 20 for this book. Oh, there are things I've quibbled about, but none of them significantly diminished my enjoyment. I'll be looking for more of Robin Sloan's books. I hope they're like this one.

Nerds rule! Really! I just finished reading Mr. Penumbra’s 24 Hour Bookstore by Robin Sloan and I have arrived at my opening statements as a result of reading this book. I loved this book. It was unlike anything else I have read which is unusual because I read a lot, and I did not want to stop reading it, which is one of the best criteria for choosing a great book. Of course Mr. Penumbra’s name, which refers to: 1. The partially shaded outer region of the shadow cast by an opaque object, or 2. The shadow cast by the earth or moon over an area experiencing a partial eclipse gives us a great big clue that we are about to explore something or somewhere mysterious. Clay Jannon is our guide to solving the enigma that consumes his life once he is hired to work the overnight shift at Mr. Penumbra’s 24 Hour Bookstore. Clay has just lost his job which involved designing web ads for a shop called NewBagel whose mission was to bring New York City style bagels to San Francisco; a store which failed. He is operating in the current tough job market. His new job with Mr. Penumbra is saving his lifestyle. Clay’s roommate Mat is an artist who is gradually turning the common space in their apartment into a simulated city (not computer simulated either). His other roommate is Ashley Ames. He is best friends with Neel Shah who has made himself rich with software that provides body parts, especially boobs to game designers (these are digital in nature). Through the bookstore he meets a few “normal” people including Kat Potente who works at everyone’s dream company, Google. He also meets a string of very eccentric and “original” people who are the actual clientele of the back shelves of this bookstore. It is this group of borrowers that Clay must especially keep track of. He accepts the book s/he has finished with its totally incomprehensible title and he provides her/him with another tome with an equally incomprehensible, but new, title, which often has to be retrieved via a ladder from far up near the very high ceiling of the back room of the bookstore. Clay also must write a detailed description of the borrower, his/her demeanor, attire and any exchanges that took place in the set of log books behind his desk. He is apparently free to read and use his computer when he is not busy with customers (which is almost always). Clay and his friends become interested in figuring out what is going on with these strange bookstore clients who do not buy books but simply borrow books. Why do the books look so old and plainly bound? Why do these, let’s call them interesting, characters act like they are involved in some kind of weighty research using books that are obviously written in some kind of code. What bunch of IT and art nerds would not be in nirvana with such a meaty mystery to submit to their computer algorithms for answers. Is the internet up to it? Can Google, google it? The collision between very old school books and computers reverberates like a gong through the lives of all the new and old people in Clay’s life. Fun, fun, fun and also makes you wonder if the whole book is a riddle or puzzle. If you solve it please let me know. I have some ideas but they would be spoilers so I will keep them to myself.

"The books I love most are like open cities, with all sorts of ways to wander in." So says Clay Jannon, the narrator of Robin Sloan's marvelously magical book, Mr. Penumbra's 24-Hour Bookstore. Honestly, any novel that combines a celebration of a lifetime in the literary world, a lifetime of reading, along with a rollicking, mysterious adventure, is one I could imagine myself living inside of. The economic recession has hit Clay Jannon hard, causing him to lose his job as a web designer and marketer for a profitable bagel company in San Francisco. Finding himself doing everything but looking for a job, one afternoon walking around the city, he comes upon Mr. Penumbra's 24-Hour Bookstore, and after proving his ability to quickly climb a ladder to fetch books from high shelves, he finds himself employed, working the late night shift. But the more time he spends in the bookstore, the more he realizes it's not your average establishment. The inventory is random at best--there is very little rhyme or reason to what books the store carries. Very few customers come to the store while Clay is working, and those who do come in repeatedly and don't actually buy anything, but instead borrow mysterious books written in an indecipherable language from strange corners of the store. And then there's the matter of the logbook which Mr. Penumbra requires Clay write in after every customer leaves, and record every aspect of the transaction, down to the customers' moods, even what they're wearing. Clay knows something strange must be going on, and to fill his late night hours, begins investigating. He enlists his girlfriend, Google employee Kat, his childhood best friend Neel (now owner of a successful tech company), and his artist roommate Mat in trying to figure out what mysteries lie within the books, the store, and Mr. Penumbra himself. And what they find takes them all on a rollicking adventure which touches on data visualization, literary and graphic history, the choice of hewing to tradition vs. embracing change, and, most importantly, a love of books. This is a magical, compelling, well-written book I absolutely loved. I'm a big fan of books that take you on an adventure, and even if I wasn't always completely sure what was going on, this book hooked me from start to finish. Robin Sloan has created a tremendously fascinating, complex, and exciting world, and the characters are multidimensional and very appealing. If you like your stories with a side of adventure, or if you like books that don't follow a traditional plot or story flow, definitely pick up Mr. Penumbra's 24-Hour Bookstore. You'll find yourself utterly captivated and wishing you could find his bookstore and be part of the adventure.

I agree with the other reviewers that Mr. Penumbra's 24-Hour Bookstore was a fun, light read. The book ties together Silicon Valley culture / hypothetical tech companies with an unusual generation-spanning secret society dedicated to an ancient creed. There are a number of interesting characters who work for Google and for another tech startup -- one that creates anatomically correct 3D boobs (yes, for real!) The story is centered on the old San Francisco bookstore of the title... and seemed to promise both a nerdy and bookish adventure. The underpinning of the novel is the coming-of-age of our hero Clay Jannon, and his awkward 21st century attempts at dating, finding the right fit in a high-tech world that moves pretty fast, and understanding how he fits in the world. I liked Clay a lot, and he's quite an appealing character. It's a quick light read, but it's not a thriller. So if you're looking for a techy version of Dan Brown or Umberto Eco, you won't find it here (even though there are indeed monkish characters who wear cloaks and study ancient manuscripts, and a villianous person chasing them.... there's not much of a thrill ride here). It's more a contemporary ennui-ridden story of Clay Jannon coming to adulthood and finding his way in love, the world, and books. For all that, it's a fun read, and I enjoyed it. However, some interesting opportunities for this novel were really left on the floor. And I mention these not because I want to write the book for Robin Sloan, but because these are pretty obvious options for a novel like this... and it would be fun to read a novel that included these things. 1) Manuscripts and what they mean: Ancient texts hold the key to the puzzle for this book, but it turns out that all the scanning done by Google doesn't help them understand the point of the story found across many books. Fine, and good. But it turns out that the stories in the books don't actually solve the puzzle at all -- which is hugely disappointing to any true book reader. There are lots of ways that scanning a book doesn't reveal the true meaning of the metaphors. So why not go there? For example, the characters never actually READ any of the books in the story. They are just used a placeholders, as logical puzzle pieces. I reference "The Rule of Four" for an example of a story that does in fact, have the characters read the books. And what if, as the characters are reading the books, they realize no one else has ever read them. There are lots of real-world possibilities in missing, ancient manuscripts that could be used in a story like this -- but they just weren't used in this story at all. For example, Milton apparently had some missing manuscripts. Another sequel to Paradise Lost? Shakespeare too! What about the rest of Chaucer (his Canterbury Tales are a famous incomplete manuscript). Aristotle apparently wrote dialogues -- all of them missing to this day -- and Plato wrote analytical texts like Aristotle (also missing). Other books from the Bible? What about many ancient authors referenced in the Library of Alexandria index, but unknown in our present day? Why not reveal their books as interesting and connected on a metaphorical level? What if they had word tricks that pointed to each other, and story points (like in 1001 Nights) that reference each other, that a machine could never understand? Robin Sloan doesn't do this.... but I kind of wish he had written this kind of a book. Yeah, I guess I wanted a more modern-day version of Umberto Eco's famous "Name of the Rose." (Perhaps I'll write it some day) 2) Technology and What it can do: So, they scan manuscripts attempting to discover their meaning, and fail. But what's interesting about this is that scanning a manuscript could -- theoretically -- inject a bit of code into a system that's not designed to accommodate it. Why not have a pseudo-ancient manuscript inject a SQL error into Google, and bring the whole internet down? If you structured it right, this could happen. But this possibility (and many others) that would enable manuscripts to be "stronger" or more powerful (rather than inert) in their interactions with modern technological institutions were possibilities left on the floor. Furthermore, to train a machine learning -- artificial intelligence -- system, you do a lot of training of the system on other data -- on manuscripts, email, text files and the like. The Enron corpus (all the emails from the Enron legal case) are often used to train systems to recognize patterns. Why didn't we get into machine learning? Google is getting there... exposing some of these technologies in the context of this book would have been fascinating. Anyway, now I'm digressing into the book I would have written. Mr. Penumbra's 24-Hour Bookstore is a fine, light read, and a lot of fun. It just could have been much more.... so here's hoping.... someday ;-)

What a blast! I'm still on a high, having finished the book just moments ago. Ordinarily, "a blast" is a descriptor that I reserve for parties, concerts and snowboarding trips; in the case of "Mr. Penumbra.." it is quite apt for a book. Full disclosure: this book has been on my to-read list since it came out in 2012. Just a month or two ago, I discovered that the author is a graduate of my high school (and college) so I dove in. The fact that a vapid, sterile, soulless suburb could produce such a talent may be the most amazing part of the story. It is difficult to describe the book without creating spoilers so try to imagine the labrynthine plot of "Da Vinci Code," only smart. Where Dan Brown appears to be casting nets in all directions with no real sense of discipline or purpose, Robin Sloane is neat and concise. Everything makes beautiful, elegant sense. In a nutshell, the protagonist, Clay, a late gen-X-er/early millennial finds himself in San Francisco unemployed due to the big bubble pop of the late 'aughts and wanders into a small, strange bookstore that is open 24/7. He wanders out with a job as night clerk and soon discovers "something strange is afoot at Mr. Penumbra's"--I like to think this line is an homage to "Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure." Mr. Sloane manages to tie in knowledge of design (both Modern and Renaissance), pre-pubescent fantasy novel series, the Silicon Valley tech industry and social psychology almost seamlessly. The story is by turns slow and can't-put-it-down, which is probably by design. Most readers need a little breathing time between adrenaline rushes. The reason for the four stars instead of five is that Sloane's prose is not quite there yet--a little sophomoric? pedantic? Maybe even cheesy? Kind of like the guy who tries too hard to be funny and ends up falling flat. Just doesn't quite come off right. The epilogue reminded me of the end of a Whit Stillman movie. Almost cringe-inducingly neat. These are minor points. Still highly recommend. Overall, a great summer read in the tradition of "Gone Girl" or a Richard Preston medical thriller: smart, fun, thought-provoking.

"Its a Cult!" The Bookbabe Reviews: Mr. Penumbra's 24 Hour Bookstore by Robin Sloan Well Cult is a bit of a strong word but to does come to mind when I think of this book. In Mr. Penumbra's 24 Hour Bookstore we meet a cast of unforgettable, lovable characters. Our main characters are Clay Jannon; an unemployed web designer and Ajax Penumbra, a mysterious bookshop owner. Clay wanders into Penumba's bookshop looking for a job, and right away he and the old man hit it off. Clay takes on the over night shift and it does not take him long to notice that this book store is very different. As in it does not have customers but it does have folks that come in and borrow large, unsellable tomes. Upon taking the job Clay has to agree to three things: 1) he must always be at the bookstore from the hours of 10 pm to 6 am. 2) He can not browse, read or otherwise inspect the shelved (secret) volumes , and 3) he must retrieve them for the "members". These "members" are odd, mainly older folks that come in usually in a frenzy for a new book to help them with her "research". Clay works in the store for weeks recording his interactions with each "member" and never takes a peak at the books. That is until one of us meddling friends comes for a visit and that is when things really start to get a little weird. Clay embarks on a journey to find out how to decode the books and even goes as far as to steal a log book (what he records the members interactions and member numbers in) and takes it to Google for scanning. He even goes as far to enlist a friend to produce a look-a-like copy of the book. Of course, Penumbra figures out Clay took it but he does not fire him. Instead he explains to him that the people that a borrowing the books are members of a secret society called "The Unbroken Spine". The group is made up of three levels; novices, the unbound and the bound. These folks are challenged with solving an encrypted puzzle by "reading deeply". Upon completely each objective they move up in the ranks and will eventually learn the greatest secret of all. How to gain immortality. Of course, Clay has an issue with this and has his doubts but he can not bring himself to shake it off. So with the helps of some friends from Google, a production company and members of the Unbroken Spine itself to break the mystery of its most sacred codex vitae (book of life). What I loved about this book was that it could appeal to any reader. It deals heavily with technology, programing and delves into the into the book versus e-reader debate. Also the book is funny, imaginative and like nothing I have read in a while. It has the perfect mix of mystery and humor and just a tad bit of drama. I gave the book five out of five stars. Quotes I loved: "But when people are past a certain age, you sort of stop asking them why they do things. It feels dangerous." About having a Kindle "I always imagine the books staring and whispering, Traitor!" "I didn't know people your age to read books," Penumbra says. He raises an eyebrow."I was under the impression they read everything on their mobile phones." "Not everyone. There are plenty of people, you know - people who still like the smell of books." "THE SMELL!" , Penumbra repeats. "You know your finished when people start talking about the smell" "The Unbroken Spine. It sounds more like a band of assassins, not a bunch of book lovers" "Walking the stacks in a library, dragging your fingers across the spines - it's hard not too feel the presence of sleeping spirits" "A man walking fast down a lonely street, Quick steps and hard breathing, all wonder and need. A bell above a door and the tinkle it makes, A clerk and a ladder and warm golden light, and then: the right books exactly, at the right time" For more reviews and articles be sure to follow me on facebook at www.facebook.com\thebookbabeofde and on blogger at www.delawarebookaddict.blogspot.com. I am also on tumblr as thebookbabeblog84

First of all, don't buy the Kindle version of this book unless it's a second copy. This PHYSICAL, TANGIBLE book is one that's going to keep people's love affair with the printed page alive, in my opinion. I did not know this when I bought it and I don't want to ruin the surprise, but in the interest of people buying tangible copies, let me tell you this: The dust jacket is lovely and textured AND GLOWS IN THE DARK. So, that's my review of the book itself. Let's get to what's between the covers. I thoroughly enjoyed this book. Sloan's combination of old dusty books and "new-fangled" technology were a perfect fit for me. I work in technology and love gadgets, but when it comes to books and magazines -- it's paper for me. I appreciated Sloan's appreciation for both as well. This book--the "love affair with books" part of it--reminded me of SHADOW OF THE WIND--although the plots are different, it's conjures up that similar feeling of loving books. This book was fascinating and interesting and the characters and setting came to life. There's something about the mysteries behind secret societies that keep people glued to the TV--no different than with this book. You keep turning pages to find out what is behind these books? What is this story really a front for? I don't want to say too much more because I don't want to even give hints at where this story goes. My four-star rating comes from a feeling of dissatisfaction about how quickly the end came -- cannot say more than that without giving it away. But, the book is really worth a read. I was with it almost the whole way. Take the journey yourself into this mysterious world Sloan created.

Mr. Penumbra’s 24-Hour Bookstore is a romp of a first novel by Robin Sloan. It’s a perfect book for booklovers who lean toward the mysterious and fantastic, blurring genre lines throughout to afford readers a marvelous time. The novel begins when Clay Jannon, the first-person narrator, is responding to an advertisement for a clerk in a 24-hour bookstore in San Francisco. Clay was educated as a graphic artist, but he’s finding jobs scarce since his work designing a logo and a website for a bagel bakery and acting as the “voice” of @NewBagel on Twitter — definitely a new economy sort of job. When the bakery went bust along with the rest of the economy less than a year after Clay took the job, he was left jobless with a very slim resume. So the help wanted ad in the window of the bookstore seems like a godsend, even though Clay questions whether the bookstore is a legitimate employer — after all, legitimate employers advertise on Craigslist, not in their windows, right? Clay suspects that “24-Hour Bookstore” is a euphemism for something distasteful. He’s wrong about that, but he’s right that there’s something weird about the place. For one thing, there are almost no customers. In fact, there are almost no books, either, at least not the normal sort of books you would expect to be on offer. The bookstore is oddly shaped, too: "[I]magine the shape and volume of a normal bookstore turned up on its side. This place was absurdly narrow and dizzyingly tall, and the shelves went all the way up — three stories of books, maybe more.… "The shelves were packed close together, and it felt like I was standing at the border of a forest — not a friendly California forest, either, but an old Transylvanian forest, a forest full of wolves and witches and dagger-wielding bandits all waiting just beyond moonlight’s reach. There were ladders that clung to the shelves and rolled side to side. Usually those seem charming, but here, stretching up into the gloom, they were ominous. They whispered rumors of accidents in the dark." A dedicated group of individuals visit the store to borrow books from the special collection housed in those ominous shelves; they never pay any money, and they ask for the volumes by the name on the spine, which appears to be simply the last name of the author. Mr. Penumbra hires Clay for the night-time shift, from 10:00 p.m. until 6:00 a.m. He tells him not to look into any of the books in the back of the store, the ones on those high shelves, but only retrieve them for customers. And Clay must also keep precise records of all transactions, including not just what book was given to whom, but the time, the customer’s appearance, the customer’s state of mind, and anything else that Clay might observe, down to the material of which the customer’s coat buttons are made. It’s all very strange, but it’s an easy enough job. But Clay can’t resist looking into those books. And there he finds… gibberish. And then Clay becomes curious about the mysteries in the store and tries to unravel them. It is a trip that will lead him deep into data networks and across the country, and give him a fair bit of insight into himself. Sloan’s novel is about the intersection of books and technology, a subject of intense concern to many of us who love books in all their many forms, books as art, books as objects, books as repositories of information, books as sources of pleasure. The writing is lively and the plot is deliciously complicated. The novel contains both joy and melancholy, but ultimately, it is forward-looking, about how anyone can find his or her own place in the new world in which we find ourselves. It may seem strange that I see this book as straddling genres; there are no spells, no magic, no wizards (excepting always those who are wizards with technology, which mostly means Google employees in this novel). But it has the air of fantasy, of the mysticism inherent in books, of the magic of puzzles and those who devote their lives to solving them. And, of course, there’s a secret society; maybe that’s enough. Or maybe I just loved this book so much that I want everyone to have the joy of reading it. Take my word for it, fantasy fans: you’ll like Mr. Penumbra’s 24-Hour Bookstore.

若者が話してる口調で話が書かれているところが読んでいて楽しいです。テンポもよくすぐに読み終わりました。サンフランシスコが舞台の明るく楽しいフィクションです。

My Thoughts: 1. Based on the synopsis I was expecting a slow-paced mystery read but I couldn't be more wrong. The plot was adventurous, addicting, fast-paced and not to mention there were some funny moments too! 2. The way in which the book was written made it a very entertaining read. Robin Sloan has a unique writing style that makes it so easy for readers to understand and grasp such complex ideas in the plot. 3. I adore all the characters. It's very rare to read a book that has this wide of a variety and range of characters. But at the same time, I liked how the author kept the characters and plot realistic and believable. 4. I really enjoyed reading Clay's character development as the plot progresses. Because the protagonist is so hilarious and geeky, it makes this book a perfect light-hearted and fun read. 5. I'm glad the author decided to include an epilogue; it brought the story to a perfect end. My favorite part of the whole book has to be that last page <3

Me diverti demais com esse livro, não consegui parar de ler. É um livro nerd, mas acho que todos devem ler, mesmo que não seja nerd o bastante, afinal no mundo de hoje todo mundo é um pouco nerd.

Books about bookshops are charming, and this one is no exception. A dash of San Francisco and big tech makes this even more fun to read. Every page has a giggle-worthy line too. A happy package to settle one's brain.

“All the secrets in the world worth knowing are hiding in plain sight.” (Pos. 3901) Content: Clay Jannon, web-designer in San Francisco has lost his job and he finds a new one, working at Mr. Penumbra's 24-Hour Bookstore, but only the night shifts from 10 to 6. The shop looks quite small and offers a wide range of SF books, but deep in the background are huge shelves with very old, strange looking books. Clay notes that most clients do not buy books, but borrow one of these special books, bring it back and borrow another one. Therefore, this must be more than a normal bookstore. Together with his friends Mat and Neel, he begins with researches to reveal the story behind the bookshop that seems to be more a library, and its customers. However, not everybody likes these investigations and the organization in the background is powerful and dangerous. Theme and genre: This novel is not only about books and bookstores, but also about important knowledge and mysteries, hidden in books. IT market players like Google, the people and researches behind is also a topic. Characters: Clay Jannon is more than a book-nerd and he definitely changes, his self-confidence growing with the dangers. He and his friends are witty, likeable specialists. Plot and writing: The novel is written in the first-person point of view, told by Clay Jannon. The language is enjoyable and humorous. The story is interesting and thrilling, and there is some magic and mystery woven into the plot. This together makes the book a real page-turner. The author has also written a short prequel pf 112 pages about how Mr. Penumbra came to the bookstore: “Ajax Penumbra: 1969”, Kindle Edition, which I have read first. Conclusion: A gripping story for booklovers, with mysteries and exciting turns and likeable protagonists. Perfect for a weekend lost in a book.