Mr. Penumbra's 24-Hour Bookstore Audiobook Review

Mr. Penumbra's 24-Hour Bookstore by Robin Sloan

This was an unexpected joy of an audiobook. The book starts with the main character Clay losing his design job in the great recession and finding night shift employment in a strange little 24 hour bookstore. He quickly realizes that there is more going on than meets the eyes. There are a few traditional books for sale but the majority of the store is filled with books from the way back collection.

The way back books are for the strange card-carrying members of some type of book club. Clay’s job is to trade out the books the members request and to log everything about them and their demeanor into a ledger. Oh, and he is not to look into any of the way back books.

The story is fun. I loved the characters from quirky old Mr. Penumbra, to the artist roommate, millionaire/dungeon master best friend, and the book club members. Friendships and relationships are a big theme of the book. There are plenty of laughs and some downer moments.     

At one point the main character Clay describes the difference between reading a book and listening to an audiobook as reading happens in your head and listening has the story happening in a fuzzy cloud around your head. I nodded crazily as he said that, I’ve thought about the difference but never tried to put it into words. He nailed it.

The narrator can make or break an audiobook, and in this case Ari Fliakos did a superb job. There was a voice for each character that fit them. Sometimes a character would start to go off on a tangent and you could hear the excitement. It really made an already enjoyable story even better. 

Amazon Description:

 A Winner of the Alex Award, a finalist for the Los Angeles Times Book Prize for First Fiction, named a Best Book of the Year by NPR, Los Angeles Times, and San Francisco Chronicle

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. Rendered with irresistible brio and dazzling intelligence, Robin Sloan's Mr. Penumbra's 24-Hour Bookstore is exactly what it sounds like: an establishment you have to enter and will never want to leave.

This book and audiobook are both available from the Lake County Library System.