A great book for nerds. And aren't we all a little nerdy?

Sometimes a book becomes one of my favorites because it is entertaining. I don’t always want to travel to new places and learn new things, to be challenged and pushed. Sometimes I simply want to be transported. Mr. Penumbra’s 24-Hour Bookstore by Robin Sloan accomplished this for me.It was wonderful.

I reviewed the book for Nudge. Here’s an excerpt:

When Clay Jannon visits Mr. Penumbra’s 24-Hour Bookstore for the first time, the bookstore proprietor asks him, “What do you seek in these shelves?” That turn of the traditional question, “How can I help you?” is like a conspiratorial wink that implies, “How can I assist on the adventure on which you are about to embark?” It’s an apt question for such a book as Mr. Penumbra’s 24-Hour Bookstore by Robin Sloan.

Clay is between design jobs when he gets third shift work at Mr. Penumbra’s 24-Hour Bookstore. What should be a pretty dull job, standing behind a counter at an infrequently visited bookstore in the middle of the night, is made more interesting by the eccentric characters that do come to the store for books. They pay no money for the books they seek, which contain only coded text, instead checking them out them as if at a library. During his near-solitary evenings, Clay can’t help but become intrigued as to how the bookstore can stay open and what the books are that people are checking out.

You can read my complete review of Mr. Penumbra’s 24-Hour Bookstore by Robin Sloan on Nudge.