Tuesday, September 3, 2013

September Book

I really wanted to schedule a book club meeting at the end of this week, to celebrate and/or commiserate over the beginning of school, but I am afraid that I really can't handle a single other thing to be scheduled this week! Sooooo, our next meeting (long overdue, I am afraid) will be next

Friday, September 13th, at 7:00 pm at Panera Bread on Everett Mall Way. 
We just finished some really amazing and fun books, the first two in the Lunar Chronicles by Marissa Meyer, that I am dying to talk about!  Let me know if you plan on attending!

In honor of the beginning of school and returning to the world of books, libraries and knowledge, and just because it is a really fun read, for September we will be reading Mr. Penumbra's 24-Hour Bookstore, by Robin Sloan.  I listened to it on audio and cracked up the entire time over the narrator's portrayal of the main character.  Here is a synopsis to enjoy:


"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 has 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 the gnomic Mr. Penumbra. The store must be a front for something larger, Clay concludes, and soon he’s embarked on a complex analysis of the customers’ behavior and roped his friends into helping to figure out just what’s going on. But once they bring their findings to Mr. Penumbra, it turns out the secrets extend far outside the walls of the bookstore.


With irresistible brio and dazzling intelligence, Robin Sloan has crafted a literary adventure story for the twenty-first century, evoking both the fairy-tale charm of Haruki Murakami and the enthusiastic novel-of-ideas wizardry of Neal Stephenson or a young Umberto Eco, but with a unique and feisty sensibility that’s rare to the world of literary fiction. Mr. Penumbra’s 24-Hour Bookstore is exactly what it sounds like: an establishment you have to enter and will never want to leave, a modern-day cabinet of wonders ready to give a jolt of energy to every curious reader, no matter the time of day."

No comments: