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

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These books about books are difficult for book-lovers to ignore, I think. You put the word "bookstore" in the title, with a quirky name and, bam! Next bibliophile that comes across it is going to pick it up for sure.

Well, in my case, I checked the Amazon page. I'd been seeing the hype around the novel. So, bookshop + quirky name + interesting book description + hype = Yes, I will get you.

My initial question, though, was whether I'd get the print book or the ebook. I'd also read this interview of Robin Sloane implying that, in the age of ebooks, you have to find reasons for buyers to invest in the print book. I thought that was a pretty smart idea. There has to be added value to the print book, otherwise people like me, who try not to overburden our currently overburdened book shelves, are just going to get the ebook.

So I checked out what added value the print book had. I usually get the print book if: 1) I know the book's going to be a keeper; 2) There are illustrations that I know will suck on an ereader; 3) There's a particular book design on the print book that is going to be impossible to replicate on an ebook (think Tree of Codes or Mark Danielewski's House of Leaves). Apparently, the only added value in the print book is the glow-in-the-dark cover. Seriously? And it's not like it's an astounding dust jacket design. Disappointment #1.

Of course, I got the ebook. Not going to spring for a more expensive print book just for a glow-in-the-dark book jacket.

Then I started reading it. Now, I've been reading a couple of techno-mystery/thrillers/romance that ALWAYS have a computer programmer as the main character (Alif the Unseen, Goodbye For Now). They're written in very accessible prose. I guess if you're a book blogger, you know that "accessible" is a euphemism for "easy enough for an average 15-year-old kid to read." Alif, I loved, for reasons that I might yet write about in this blog. Goodbye for Now was too raw for me, but I liked all this discussion about how technology and the internet is changing how we view things, absorb knowledge, and experience the world.

Thus, I had high hopes for Mr. Penumbra.

I'm sorry to say, I'm kind of let down. And yes, I know I'm in the minority.

Let me say first that it is a fun read. You can breeze through it in perhaps 4-6 hours, less if you're a speed reader. The prose is reminiscent of Ready Player One, really, including some of the snark. There's an old bookstore, old books (of course!), a fusty but charming proprietor, computer geeks, design geeks, book geeks, typography, mention of bestsellers, tech start-ups, a secret society (a very tame version of the Illuminati, if you ask me), a fake fantasy series reminiscent of Dungeons and Dragons, and Google. Sounds fun, doesn't it? Definitely, for a certain type of audience.

But early into it, it laid on the Google love pretty thick, as though Google is the awesomest place and company on Earth. Now, I don't doubt it would be cool to work for Google, but I take it against my fiction if it shows an obvious bias towards a corporation. Disappointment #2.

And then there were the characters who, I guess, would be great if they were cardboard stereotypes of a fast-paced Hollywood tv series. Everyone is just so convenient. Disappointment #3. Yes, they're cute, but I like my characters more dynamic, especialy if we're going to talk about books and technology, which I feel strongly about.

I guess this is really why I was disappointed with the book: because I love books, and I work in ebooks, and I'm familiar with the technology. For instance, I know that the Harry Potter ebooks are not really "unhackable," like the book claims. I know there's no cloth-bound ereader yet developed by Google, and I seriously doubt Google would even go into developing a dedicated e-reading device. I can't believe that all the computing power of Google with all of the brain power of its engineers fail to see the solution that the character eventually finds in the end.

But let's say we take all of this in stride. After all, it's a work of fiction. In which case, I was hoping for a more nuanced take into the transformation of Old Knowledge, OK for short, found in books to the more ubiquitous digital kind. Every kind of information container was thrown into the story: print books, ebooks, audio books, computers, old printing machines, stubs for types, even museum warehouses--repositories of forgotten human knowledge. But it felt like it was just all thrown in there, without really giving a satisfying perspective on how we now consume our information.

And then there's this cop-out at the end: an homage to friendship. Really? Can it get cornier than that? Oh wait, there's the epilogue. Yes, yes it could.

Ok, reading this you might think I hate the book. In all honesty, I didn't. I was just disappointed, because I expected much, especially from a former Twitter manager. I grant that this might not entirely be the book's fault. I'm not sure, then, if I should blame the marketing department, or all those people who gave it 5 stars in their Amazon reviews.

My recommendation: go read it. Seriously, it's not entirely a bad way to spend a Sunday afternoon. You can geek out just thinking about the book shop or the books they're selling. And you are not me, so you don't have my immediate biases towards the book. I'd even recommend it for a high school reading list, though if you are a teacher and include it in your reading list, I'd also suggest you process all the Google love with your students.

Now, though, I'm hankering for a book that really means something.

P.S., If you're so inclined, here's a really smart, albeit long, discussion about books, from printed to ebooks, content vs. container.