I am so intrigued by my current read. It is not a
mystery, but an enigma. I picked it up, like many of my personal books, while
waiting for a plane. Bookstores in airports will never go out of business, but
I picked this read up because of the sweet title, Mr. Penumbra’s 24-Hour
Bookstore.
I was thinking little white-haired ladies and their
crazy attics while petting several cats in a dusty old building, but what I got
was a modern day coder falling in love with the local hacker who works for Google.
Our hero, Clay Jannon, lost his webmaster position
with a start-up in San Francisco and spends his days on craigslist looking for
a comparable positions. Things are not going well. It is as if the whole world
is looking for a job and he is always a step or two late.
Typical of his generation, he takes his cushy pale
body away from his laptop and smart phone to hike a couple of San Francisco
hills. While admiring the scenery – one can walk the streets and be inundated
with large Victorian homes and skyscrapers then all the sudden crest a hill and
see nothing but sky and sea – a sharp red help-wanted sign distracts his eyes.
Clay pops into the dark stained entrance and is
smacked by the smell of old books and burnt coffee. On the walls as far back as
his head can tilt are shelves full of books. The ladders are in the shape of a
venturi with wide months on both ends and thin middles. These meander on wheels
all around the steep bookcases looking like an Edward Gorey maze.
Mr. Penumbra stands behind the large desk and ask
for Clay’s intentions as the neighboring establishment, Booty, makes the walls
throb with low bass beats. The two lock eyes and smile. Clay would like to know
if he has filled the position.
“Tell me,” Mr. Penumbra quizzes, “about a book you
love.”
Clay takes a breath and says, “I love The Dragon-Song Chronicles.”
His smile got a little wider and Clay was staring at
a jostle of teeth when Mr. Penumbra then asks, “But can you climb a ladder?”
Author, Robin Sloan, will have you climbing up and
down the ladders trying to answer the puzzle located in the bookstore within a
bookstore in the back.
1 comment:
Note: The book cover glows in the dark. ;D
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