I believe this is a debut nobel by Robin Sloane. Definitely an entertaining and provocative read once you get into it, all tied up with a bow at the end. Book lovers will enjoy it; geeks will enjoy it; mystery lovers will enjoy it. In fact, this is my mystery book group's read for this month. This takes place largely in the Bay Area and for a while in New York City. It is early days of the Great Recession and Clay Jannon has just lost his job as a web designer and marketer for New Bagel. He finally takes a night shift job at the eponymous bookstore, which not only looks very odd in it's layout, but also has some pretty weird customers, most of whom appear to belong to an exclusive book club that allows them to borrow the enormous books in the back of the store that are shelved several stories high. Clay is under strict orders from Mr. Penumbra to NOT read those books, but to keep a detailed log of who comes in to borrow them.
When one of Clay's friends stops by, he grabs a book and opens it and the mystery begins to deepen, for the tomes are clearly in some kind of code that looks like strings of numbers or letters--page after page. When a cute "Googler" walks into the store one night, Clay is attracted and they eventually become a couple. Kat is passionate about concepts like immortality and singularity and the role of technology in creating our future. I don't want to reveal any of the secrets that Clay uncovers with the help of his friends, but there will be a collaboration with Google and thousands of hackers and a trip to New York City.
Library Journal concludes their review by opining, "Though the depiction of Google as a utopian meritocracy seems rather farcical, Sloan has created an arch tale knitting the analog past with the digital future that is compelling and readable." Likewise, Booklist's favorable reaction is that "Sloan has crafted a delightful modern-day fantasy adventure, replacing warriors, wizards, and rogues with a Silicon Valley entrepreneur, a Googler, and a book clerk. Even nongeeks will appreciate the technological wizardry used by Clay and his sidekicks as they jet from San Francisco to New York in an attempt to unlock the secret message encrypted in a mysterious pattern of codes." Kirkus starts and end on a high note. "All the best secrets are hidden in plain sight. The trick is to notice the secret in front of you. Sloan’s debut novel takes the reader on a dazzling and flat-out fun adventure, winding through the interstices between the literary and the digital realms...From the shadows of Penumbra’s bookshelves to the brightly lit constellation of cyberspace to the depths of a subterranean library, Sloan deftly wields the magicks (definitely with a “k”) of the electronic and the literary in this intricate mystery"
I am including Publishers Weekly review in its entirety as it's fun to read. "For those who fear that the Internet/e-readers/whatever-form-of-technological-upheaval-is-coming has killed or will kill paper and ink, Sloan's debut novel will come as good news. A denizen of the tech world and self-described "media inventor" (formerly he was part of the media partnerships team at Twitter), Sloan envisions a San Francisco where piracy and paper are equally useful, and massive data-visualization-processing abilities coexist with so-called "old knowledge." Really old: as in one of the first typefaces, as in alchemy and the search for immortality. Google has replaced the Medici family as the major patron of art and knowledge, and Clay Jannon, downsized graphic designer and once-and-future nerd now working the night shift for bookstore owner Mr. Penumbra, finds that mysteries and codes are everywhere, not just in the fantasy books and games he loved as a kid. With help from his friends, Clay learns the bookstore's idiosyncrasies, earns his employer's trust, and uses media new, old, and old-old to crack a variety of codes. Like all questing heroes, Clay takes on more than he bargained for and learns more than he expected, not least about himself. His story is an old-fashioned tale likably reconceived for the digital age, with the happy message that ingenuity and friendship translate across centuries and data platforms."
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