Mr Penumbra's 24-Hour Bookstore by Robin Sloan
The hours are anti-social (10pm-6am) but for an unemployed graphic designer in recession-hit San Francisco, discovering that jobs are harder to find than he ever imagined, new start-up businsses are going to the wall by the day, and who will soon be unable to pay his oart of the rent in a shared house, anything that pays wages is a God-sent relief. Working the graveyard shift, he encounters a strange array of customers, or members, for they are the ones who borrow books from the waybacklist as he calls the towering shelves which soar into the shadows of the building, with their sliding ladders and dusty volumes. Who are these readers and why is he not allowed to open any of the books? Ah, well, he is a curious lad and his curiosity leads him to break, or bend, some of the rules his mysterious employer has laid out for him. Clay begins to use his skills – not only to promote the Bookstore on the internet, which brings him a young Googler (Kat) who quickl;y becomes his friend and then his lover, but also to discover strange things about the stock and the Members of the Library. And that is just the beginning – for in his quest for answers, he finds himself drawn into a strange world of Typographical history and the search for Immortality.
     Okay – a confession: I trained as a Graphic Designer at Glasgow School of Art, having previously worked in several University Libraries and a prominent Publishing House; and I have always been a voracious reader and acquirer of books. So Mr Penumbra's Bookstore is familiar territory, with it's smell of vellum and leather, dust and ink.
     I loved this story – part celebration of the history of books, dating from the invention of moveable type and the wooden cases which held all the letters of the alphabet. I was there with Clay as he searched for answers, and with him and Kat as they tried to use the power of Google to unlock the code contained in the waybacklist. Anyone interested in literary mystery, in logical detection and bibliographical history should certainly enjoy it. And as a Kindle Daily Deal it was a bargain at 99p and I would happily have paid full price, Now I'll need to get the prequel!