pagesofjulia

This was a wild one, recommended by Liz, and very deservingly so. I’ve been putting off writing this review and have realized I just need to come to terms with not doing it justice. Mr. Penumbra’s 24-Hour Bookstore is about the intersections and tensions between literature and technology; about love and friendship and belonging; about problem-solving and teamwork; and about the big questions of life.

In contemporary, post-Covid times, we meet Clay Jannon, who after art school went to work for NewBagel in an initially promising techy design/PR/marketing career position, but NewBagel (following an attempted rebranding as the Old Jerusalem Bagel Company) went bust, and Clay’s been out of work at a rough time to be out of work in San Francisco. Then he happens upon Mr. Penumbra’s 24-Hour Bookstore, where he is hired by the elderly, twinkling, mysterious Penumbra as a night clerk. From 10pm until 6am, Clay sits at the front desk among the short shelves of used books, which he very infrequently sells to the very infrequent customer. A little more regularly, he is called upon to help card-carrying members of an enigmatic club to access the very different volumes on what he thinks of as the Waybacklist. The bookstore is long, skinny, and vertical, with very tall shadowy shelves accessible by vertiginous ladders. The books on those shelves are in code.

Clay is an engrossing narrator of this story, so self-deprecating that the reader is nearly as late as he is to realize that he can be quite a resourceful problem-solver. He is lucky (or is it luck?) to be surrounded by an assortment of talented, eccentric friends: his best friend since sixth grade, the once-doofy now-millionaire CEO of Anatomix; his roommate, a special effects wizard; the cute girl he meets along the way, a Google-employed genius; a fellow Penumbra clerk and archaeology graduate student; and more. These are just some of the characters (in every sense of the word) who come to Clay’s aid as he tried to solve the many, layered mysteries of Penumbra’s. What is in the coded books in the Waybacklist? Who are the people who come in the night to borrow them? Each question’s answer only unlocks more questions, and the stakes keep getting higher. It evolves into a quest narrative, reaching beyond Penumbra’s compelling bookstore. Clay and company wind up chasing, among other things, a centuries-old and seemingly insoluble riddle, which will involve Clay’s childhood favorite sci fi/fantasy series, a secret society, and the history of one of the world’s best-known typefaces.

At just 8 hours audio (or around 300 pages), Mr. Penumbra’s 24-Hour Bookstore feels far more all-encompassing than such a neat package would imply. It’s one of those stories that feels like it’s about everything at once, which I love. Also, books and bibliophilia, even in the face of wild technologic advances: what’s not to love? Ari Fliakos narrates with great energy and personality; I wholeheartedly pass on Liz’s recommendation of the format as well as the book itself. I’ll be looking for more in the Penumbraverse.

Filed under: book reviews | Tagged: audio, book stores, libraries, misc fiction, speculative fiction |