Mr. Penumbra's 24-hour Bookstore - Robin Sloan

Ashley always seems to have spot-on recommendations for me. I applaud her for this choice because it has the obvious – a bookstore which speaks to my love of books – but it also has a little sci-fi mixed in, which I appreciate, but she always seems to mock.  Perhaps it is the San Francisco setting, and the other world nature of the novel, but even the writing of this one reminded me a great deal of Christopher Moore’s “You Suck” – which I very much enjoyed.  Lost in the web-design world of start-ups, the protagonist here finds himself working the night-shift as a clerk in North Beach.  There are definitely strange things afoot as buyers come to borrow obscure volumes in secret, and appear to be on the brink of figuring out the answer to an elusive problem.  The protagonist then becomes obsessed with figuring out the answer himself, bringing his friends along on a literary adventure that takes him on a journey both exciting and absurd.  This book was just a lot of fun to read.  At times, it got a little too space-time-travel-weird for me (not that there is space time travel, but just that same feeling of interesting yet far-fetched).  A quick read that definitely put a smile on my face.