Mr. Penumbra's 24 Hour Bookstore

        

Recommended by a former co-worker, (highly recommended!), I think I would have been interested in MR. PENUMBRA'S 24 HOUR BOOKSTORE
even if I'd come across it on my own.

I see the title, and I'm loving it already. Mr. Penumbra is a mysterious and intriguing name. And there's a bookstore? That's open 24 hours? Excellent.

Clay Jannon is a thirty-ish man who finds himself working in Mr. Penumbra's bookstore. From the outside, and part of the inside, it looks like a normal bookstore. Clay finds that things are not what they seem to be.

First of all, the customers. They are (mostly) older and a little eccentric. They don't come to buy books, they come to check them out, like a library. The books they check out are not from the front of the store where the books are for sale, but from the back, from what Clay calls the "Waybacklist". Clay is instructed not to note only what books are checked out, but also the customers' demeanor when they come in, as well as what they were wearing, down to what kind of buttons were on their coats.

Why? Why this attention to seemingly trivial detail? What kinds of books are these?

I can't tell any more without spoiling it (and I can't tell all anyway, as I'm not finished with it yet. This is a book I am savoring). This book is delectable; funny, yet also touching on things like immortality and evolution; it has mystery, computers, puzzles, great characters, and of course, books.

And a bonus? The cover glows in the dark.

I'm loving this.

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