Mr. Penumbra's 24-Hour Bookstore

Source: npr.org

So to work on my stress levels, I've been trying to read non-school books throughout my day. Usually this happens at night--just an unwinding and deplugging process to slow my thinking. I have a bad habit of not being able to fall asleep right away (on most nights, it takes me an hour to fall asleep) because I end up thinking about a lot of things. So my mind is constantly moving and being jumbled. Though I do think of some good stuff sometimes. Anyway, so reading is my way of not thinking.

My latest book was Robin Sloan's  Mr. Penumbra's 24-Hour Bookstore. I stumbled upon it in the library and I'm glad I did. There's tension between tech and books, some romance, nerd references, and an adventure. The premise is that Clay starts working the midnight to 8 am shift in this rarely visited bookstore in San Francisco. He must record descriptions of people who stop in (not a lot). There's a strange group of customers (like a book club) who just check various books out. But these books are encoded. So Clay tries to figure out the mystery of the shop and of Mr. Penumbra himself. With the help of a Googler girlfriend, a rich computer programmer, and old Mr. Penumbra, Clay finds himself in New York and Nevada to solve the mystery of these encoded books and the secret society.

It honestly was a nice and easy read. The end was definitely anti-climatic. I wish that Sloan had took time like in the first half of the book to develop an better middle and end. But it did make me wonder what else there is out there, right under all of our noses. Like secret societies and secret book clubs. So if anyone is in one, let me know. I'll join. It also was reminiscent of Lemony Snicket quote I have on my wall: "All the secrets of the world are contained in books. Read at your own risk."