Mr. Penumbra's 24-hour bookstore
The Great Recession has shuffled Clay Jannon away from life as a San Francisco web-design drone and into the aisles of Mr. Penumbra's 24-Hour Bookstore, but after a few days on the job, Clay discovers that the store is more curious than either its name or its gnomic owner might suggest. The customers are few, and they never seem to buy anything; instead, they "check out" large, obscure volumes from strange corners of the store. Suspicious, Clay engineers an analysis of the clientele's behavior, seeking help from his variously talented friends, but when they bring their findings to Mr. Penumbra, they discover the bookstore's secrets extend far beyond its walls.
Stats for nerds
20recommend
30mentions
26people
2013–2026years
73% recommend27% neutral
Mentions per year
What Hacker News says
- The author of the article, Robin Sloan, is an author that's written a couple of novels and a bunch of short stories (as well a great monthly-ish newsletter). I highly recommend giving his first novel, "Mr Penumbra's 24 Hour Bookstore", a read if you liked that line.
- Seems like most of the discussion here is focused on everyone's own experience with this, but can I just recommend Robin Sloan as a human in general for folks to follow in their lives?
His 2 novels, "Mr. Penumbra's 24 Hour Bookstore" and "Sourdough", are both really engaging reads. His 3rd novel is in progress and it seems like it's going to be more of the same quality. He also has a couple of novellas and a bunch of great short stories (some of which he did limited printings of and mailed out and one of which was procedurally generated and unique to the person who purchased it).
His newsletter is constantly filled with great media recommendations and he's always working on something interesting in that bridges the media and tech worlds.
He also makes great olive oil (Fat Gold).
- Thanks for the recommendation. It is nice to see. I have read both of the novels myself, as well as at least one of the Penumbra novellas (it's been a while). I really enjoyed the Penumbra stuff; I have to admit I remember feeling slightly unsatisfied with the conclusion but I was definitely hooked and kept turning the pages and it was the first time I had seen a fictional book refer to Ruby programming. I really enjoyed his characters. I recall enjoying Sourdough as well, perhaps not as much as Mr. Penumbra's 24 Hour Bookstore, but that was an absolute pageturner for me so it's hard to compete with.
I am subscribed to his newsletter but I confess I rarely if ever read it. After having read this post and your comment, I'll make an effort to give it a solid look.
Festina lente!
- I'll give a casual read that became one of my favorite books:
Mr. Penumbra's 24-Hour Bookstore by Robin Sloan
It's got some tech aspects to it since the main character is starting to get into using programming to investigate a mystery and that bit definitely feels motivating. We all have a bunch of problems that we deal with in every day life that we just need a little push to start solving. But it also is just a solid mystery book that's somewhat rooted in history with some great characters (although I think the main character and his love interest are kind of the blandest of the bunch). I don't want to say anymore since I'll get into spoiling it but I'll leave you with this:
festina lente
- Some books that I have really liked:
- Name of the Wind by Patrick Rothfuss(waiting on the third book....)
- Lies of Locke Lamora by Scott Lynch (also waiting on the rest of the series...)
- The Three Body Problem by Cixin Liu - the first book was ok but I really liked the second - The Dark Forest
- Devotion of Suspect X by Keigo Higashino
- House In the Cerulean Sea
- How to Stop Time by Matt Haig
Others that I like: The Rosie Project, The Books of Babel, A long way to a small Angry Planet, Wool/Shift/Dust, Lockstep, All the Light We Cannot See, Mr. Penumbra's 24 Hour Bookstore, Earth Abides, Project Hail Mary, The Martian
Also, check out https://www.reddit.com/r/suggestmeabook/
- It's part of the demo, Annabel Scheme and the Adventure of the New Golden Gate - https://robinsloan.github.io/perfect-edition/build/web/index... - which I'm reading now. The creator of the project is Robin Sloan, fiction author; I liked his book "Mr. Penumbra's 24-Hour Bookstore."
