There’s plenty to like and plenty to dislike about Mr. Penumbra’s 24-Hour Bookstore. I’m actually a bit baffled that it wasn’t marketed as young adult fiction, and equally baffled by the glowing reviews on the back of my paperback copy (including from The New York Times Book Review, NPR, and The Economist).  

On the one hand, the set up is terrific. The Great Recession has Clay Jannon, unemployed graphic designer, looking for a job in San Francisco–and he finds one, doing the overnight shift for Mr. Penumbra’s 24-Hour Bookstore. It’s a rather strange place, with odd customers coming in at all hours and borrowing ancient tomes, and he soon realizes that a mystery is afoot. From there, it’s a rather delightful romp as Clay and his friends seek to learn the truth.

On the other hand, the plot is pretty simplistic. Clay always has a convenient friend willing to help out with the right set of skills, appropriate technology, connections, or the money to fund the next step in their quest. Their adventure is entertaining but there’s no real hint of danger or menace. The bad guy isn’t all that scary, and the good guys (and gals) are all enthusiastic and kind.

Back to that first hand–we get to celebrate both the amazing technology that the 21st century has made available to us all and the romance of literature and history. Also: people with varied interests and careers, subcultures and fandoms, kids who love fantasy novels, the fellowships created by shared goals, and the true joy of faithful friends. These are values I heartily approve of.

And back to that second hand: this novel paints an impossibly rosy picture of big tech. Here the up-and-coming female Google executive leans in and is handsomely rewarded for her troubles. The only evidence of racism on display is the unfortunate failure of an automatic sink to recognize dark skin. The wealthy tech wizard obsessed with boobs here is portrayed as charmingly laddish, not inappropriate and creepy. Mechanical Turk is a miracle of crowdsourcing here, with no thought for the people willing to work below minimum wage. We’re in the optimistic days before the world learned of suicides in Chinese iPhone factories, NSA surveillance of our emails, fake Russian social media accounts, Gamergaters, and Cambridge Analytica.  

(Also: the cryptography in this novel doesn’t make any sense at all. You can enjoy the book without it but if the puzzle itself is important to you, skip this one. Here’s a word to the wise: If you want to read a really smart novel about code-breaking and old and new technology, try Neal Stephenson’s Cryptonomicon. It’s also considerably longer and denser, and much less sentimental.) 

Still, Mr. Penumbra’s 24-Hour Bookstore is a sweet story with a big heart. The book cover is attractive and appealing, and the books printed on the cover glow in the dark. And it’s hard not to smile at the epilogue, when all the loose ends are wrapped up in satisfying ways. Here’s the very end, the part Clay Jannon wants his readers to remember: “A man walking fast down a dark lonely street. Quick steps and hard breathing, all wonder and need. A bell above a door and the tinkle it makes. A clerk and a ladder and warm golden light, and then: the right book exactly, at exactly the right time.” May we all find that right book exactly, at exactly the right time.

NOVEL: Mr. Penumbra’s 24-Hour Bookstore

AUTHOR: Robin Sloan

YEAR OF PUBLICATION: 2012

IMAGE: Book cover, Picador & Macmillan