Mr. Penumbra's 24-Hour Bookstore (Mr. Penumbra's 24-Hour Bookstore, #1)

I don't really read a whole lot of lighthearted, wholesome, easy flowing books. It's not that I prefer deep, reflective, contemplative books more, just that most of the time lighthearted books cause me to roll my eyes and get impatient. This book is another beast entirely, and it was an easy add to my favorites shelf for this year.

Without venturing into spoiler territory, the main character (Clay) takes a part time job at a 24-hour bookstore and meets Mr. Penumbra, the owner of the bookstore. Clay takes the overnight shift, and immediately starts meeting a strange cast of characters and set of rules he must abide by in his new position. Toss in liberal internal monologuing, a secret society, technology, visits to Google, obscure typography references to Geritszoon, and a wholesome message at the end, and this book managed to hit all the right notes for me.

It's not high literature, but I wasn't looking for high literature when I read it. This is a fun, geeky, quick read with a nice message that I really enjoyed. It's a charming book, not a lot of depth, but fun nonetheless. As a sidenote, I listened to the audiobook version of this and really appreciated the narrator's different voices, and the recorded bits from the audiobook the main character listened to near the end.

Been meaning to read this for a long time because the premise sounds incredible, but man does the execution suck. This is like the therapy journal of a fantasy nerd/Silicon Valley fanboy desperately trying to reconcile his technophile side with his bibliophile side. "I love e-readers and wish I worked at Google but I'm still a book worm!", he yells as he conspicuously enters the hipster coffee shop with his Powell's totebag.

It's ok, we're all figuring out that e-readers and physical books can co-exist, you don't need to write a whole watered-down Dan Brown mystery about books and Google to convince us.

Where to start. The mystery is silly enough that it could have been great fun but it never really commits. The characters are caricatures that just happen to have the right specific sets of skills the main character needs at any given time. The author worships Google to such a degree he embodied it in the character of a perfect, young, beautiful, sexually available woman so that the protagonist could fuck it. Seriously.

For all that this book tries to examine the conflict between paper books and e-books, it never really says anything about either. Paper books smell nice. Cool. Kindles are great but books never run out of battery. Got it. While Google is mentioned and praised on every other page, Amazon only gets five mentions and only in passing. Kindle is mentioned a few more times but only to describe how shitty his second-hand, busted-battery one is. No commentary is ever made on Amazon itself. The economics of Kindle books and publishing is never acknowledged. Authors getting undercut on royalties is never mentioned. To what degree independent booksellers and Amazon are actually competing is never examined (Mr. Penumbra has outside subsidies for his 24-hour bookstore so any mention of competition with Amazon is neatly swept under the rug). Anything that is actually interesting about this topic is conveniently sidestepped. It's infuriating.

In summary: Poor execution of mystery. No examination of themes. Terrible female characters. Flat characters in general. Lazy ending. Overhyping of today's technology and Google in particular (if data visualisation and OCR were as fast as shown in this book I'd be finished two PhDs by now). No thank you.

Loved the adventure story, one that also seems like a love note to Google and books. It was fun, kept me engaged, and made me want to see where the path was leading. It was a good web of story weaving, and was written in a way that felt like it would be a friendly and popular book to a YA audience, too.

Though, everything and everybody was amazing and exciting. It seemed like a utopian, wondrous place where everything wraps up beautifully and character flaws are only surface level problems. That even the big bad guy is okay, he's just taking a different approach to things. So, it did feel like a fun, entertaining adventure, but lacked a certain depth that felt missing? As in, everyone was rich, brilliant, or incredibly skilled in a niche passion. I think it was purposefully done this way though, because then the characters were able to be quirky and ultimately fulfill a certain role that became needed to defeat obstacles as a team, and so the book took on aspects and pulls from genres I normally do not read.

Unexpected, charming little fantasy/adventure story set in high-tech San Francisco. It's a curious mix of reality, cutting edge technology, and then fantasy lurking hidden around every corner. It's hard sometimes to tell where reality stops and fantasy starts.

During the recession in San Francisco Clay, an unemployed designer, gets a job at Mr. Penumbra's 24-hour bookstore and is soon trying to figure out how it can even stay in business, and what the second, hidden business of the bookshop actually is. Soon the story involves his special effect artist housemate, various Google technology and Google people, his startup-owning best friend from primary school, and lots of references to a beloved fantasy series (the Dragonsong Chronicles) that all manage to tie together into a D&D styled quest to find out the truth and help Mr. Penumbra and solve the mystery of the bookstore for good.

Crossing between reality and fantasy, modern technology and historical mystery, it's hard to describe this book. I felt the ending was a bit abrupt and the "quest" could have ended more impactfully, but it was a sweet and enjoyable light read with some likeable characters and lots of interesting detail.