Title: Mr Penumbra's 24-Hour Bookstore (Goodreads)
Author: Robin Sloan
Published: Text, 2012
Pages: 288
Genres: Crime, Fantasy
My Copy: Personal Copy
Buy: Amazon, Book Depository (or visit your local Indie bookstore)
Clay Jannon is a 26 year old who finds himself looking for a new job thanks to the economic meltdown. He finds it at Mr Penumbra’s 24-Hour Bookstore, working the late shift. But Clay soon finds out that there is more to this bookstore than the question of how it is possible it remains in business. Mr Penumbra’s 24-Hour Bookstore will take you on a literary adventure of complex codes and a global conspiracy.
This will be a hard book to review without giving away any spoilers but I will try my best. Mr Penumbra’s 24-Hour Bookstore starts off as an exciting mystery when Clay begins his new job and is faced with a lot of unanswered questions. But I soon found myself being bored with what was happening and almost quit. It did change its gears when Clay has found out what is going on and the adventure begins. Though I think it was a little too late to fully revive this novel for me.
I do like the way Robin Sloan blended mystery and literature together but honestly he really lacks the skills to turn this into something as good as The Shadow of the Wind. I will say that the novel does display a glimpse at a possibly great career. I found myself thinking the adventure elements of this book were too generic and predictable but that doesn’t mean I didn’t enjoy reading it.
There is a love story in the novel but it wasn’t a romance between Clay and Kat. Sure that was there, but that was just a predictable boy meets girl and nothing ever goes wrong with their relationship. That isn’t worth mentioning, the love story I’m talking about is the love that author Robin Sloan has with Google; the whole book reads like a love letter to Google. The characters didn’t have to try and solve anything; they just need Google to solve all the mysteries of this book.
I haven’t mentioned the characters in the book because they felt very one dimensional; there was nothing complex about them and everything felt too neat. Sloan might have a career in thriller adventure novels but I think he really needs to learn how to make the characters flawed and realistic. I’m sure if another book of Sloan’s catches my attention I will read it but Mr Penumbra’s 24-Hour Bookstore failed to excite me the way it should have. I like books about books but maybe my expectations were a little too high.
Mr. Penumbra’s 24-Hour Bookstore by Robin Sloan is a gleeful and exhilarating tale of global conspiracy, complex code-breaking, high-tech data visualization, young love, rollicking adventure, and the secret to eternal life—mostly set in a hole-in-the-wall San Francisco bookstore.
What are you reading? Will Schwalbe asks his mother, Mary Anne in The End of Your Life Book Club. Sitting in the waiting room of the Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center, Will and Mary Anne share their hopes and concerns with each other—and rediscover their lives—through their favourite books.
The epic story of The Passage continues with 
Harry Dresden is alive (spoiler alert) in the 14th book in the series; Cold Days. After being murdered by a mystery assailant, navigating his way through the realm between life and death, and being brought back to the mortal world, Harry realizes that maybe death wasn’t all that bad.
Once upon a time, an angel and a devil fell in love and dared to imagine a new way of living – Days of Blood and Starlight
Set in the present day in the rural community of Feathertown, Tennessee, Flight Behaviour tells the story of Dellarobia Turnbow, a petite, razor-sharp 29-year-old who nurtured worldly ambitions before becoming pregnant and marrying at seventeen.
The Darkest Minds finds Ruby waking up on her tenth birthday, something about her has changed. Something alarming enough to make her parents lock her in the garage and call the police. Something that gets her sent to Thurmond, a brutal government “rehabilitation camp.”
Either this is a planned Christmas gift or the perfect holiday reading but I’ve seen a lot of mentions of Oh Dear Silvia by Dawn French. Who is in Coma Suite Number 5? A matchless lover? A supreme egotist? A selfless martyr? A bad mother? A cherished sister? A selfish wife? All of these. For this is Silvia Shute who has always done exactly what she wants. Until now, when her life suddenly, shockingly stops.
I thought it was a bit of a slow month for reading, I guess everyone is either busy or playing catch up with books missed though out the year. But then I noticed that there were a lot of classics being read. A Christmas Carol and for some weird reason Les Misérables and The Hobbit.
November has ended and the holiday season is well on its way. For the people who read