Mr. Penumbra's 24-Hour Bookstore

With a unique and feisty sensibility that's rare to the world of literary fiction, Mr Penumbra's 24-Hour Bookstore is a modern-day cabinet of wonders ready to give a jolt of energy to every curious reader, no matter what the time of day

The Great Recession has shuffled Clay Jannon out of his life as a San Francisco web-design drone, and serendipity, sheer curiosity and the ability to climb a ladder like a monkey have landed him a new gig working the night shift at Mr Penumbra's 24-Hour Bookstore. 

But after just a few days on the job, Clay begins to realize that this store is even more curious than the name suggests. There are only a few customers, but they come in repeatedly and never seem to actually buy anything, instead "checking out" impossibly obscure volumes from strange corners of the store, all according to some elaborate, long-standing arrangement with gnomic Mr Penumbra. The store must be a front for something larger, Clay concludes, and soon he has embarked on a complex analysis of the customer's behaviour and roped his friends into helping him figure out just what's going on. 

With irresistible brio and dazzling intelligence, Robin Sloan has crafted a literary adventure story for the 21st century which evokes both the fairy tale charm of Haruki Murakami and the enthusiastic novel-of-ideas wizardry of Neal Stephenson or a young Umberto Eco.