A Book Adventure for Bookish Folks

Mr. Penumbra’s 24-Hour Bookstore by Robin Sloan

Hardback $25.00; Paperback $15.00; Free at your local library

“Penumbra sells used books, and they are in such uniformly excellent condition that they might as well be new. He buys them during the day—you can only sell to the man with his name on the windows—and he must be a tough customer. He doesn’t seem to pay much attention to the bestseller lists. His inventory is eclectic; there is no evidence of pattern or purpose other than, I suppose, his own personal taste. So, no teenage wizards or vampire police here. That’s a shame, because this is exactly the kind of store that makes you want to buy a book about a teenage wizard. This is the kind of store that makes you want to be a teenage wizard.”

I suspect that I fell for Mr. Penumbra’s 24-Hour Bookstore with that first description of the eponymous shop. What book lover wouldn’t want to imagine spending hours browsing those stacks? Or, better yet, working all night surrounded with such wealth? The books are the stars of the show, and the stars of this novel.

Mr. Penumbra’s 24-Hour Bookstore tells the tale of mysterious bookshop, with a mysterious clientele, and an even more mysterious proprietor. Clay Jannon grows up loving tales of wizards and adventures, but winds up working the night shift to make ends meet during the Great Recession. When he realizes that the books around him are the keys to a secret society, it launches him on to a modern quest of his own.

The cast of characters here may not be deep, but they are quirky and fun. Every good quest needs a wizard, a knight, and a few dragons to slay, right? While Mr. Penumbra is the very definition of the wizard behind the quest, Clay and his friends are the kinds of folks you could easily imagine hanging around a late night coffee shop, discussing computers in a language entirely their own. You could imagine them as the best kind of hipsters, in fact. They wind up heading off on their adventure with a band of dedicated book lovers to whom technology is completely unnecessary, if not downright alien. The result is a clash of modern culture with ancient ideas, in a fun, though obvious way.

This is a secret society adventure for the book lovers amongst us, and it’s a fun jaunt

 

In the Midst of Death, Life

The Fault in Our Stars, by John Green

Hardback $17.99; Free at your local library

“Abraham Maslow, I present to you Augustus Waters, whose existential curiosity dwarfed that of his well-fed, well-loved, healthy brethren. While the mass of men went on leading thoroughly unexamined lives of monstrous consumption, Augustus Waters examined the collection of the Rijksmuseum from afar.”

After looking forward to the publication of John Green’s newest Young Adult novel, I put off reading it. The main characters, two teenagers with terminal cancer, struck a little too close to home. I wasn’t ready to wallow in an emotional mire. When I did pick it up, I was happy to find a book more about life, than death.

Hazel Lancaster knows that she will die of her thyroid cancer, even though she has a temporary reprieve through her medications.  At a support group for teenage cancer patients, she meets Augustus Waters, whose osteosarcoma is in remission. These two characters are the dynamic, beating heart of this novel.  Their shared experience of cancer shades everything, but they remain typical teenagers despite that.  Like most of John Green’s teen characters, these two are so edgy and hip that they seem overplayed at times, but they are eminently relatable.  Odd as it seems, they manage to be very stereotypical teenagers who overthrow all of the teenage stereotypes.

One of the themes of the novel is how cancer shakes life to its roots, but how life continues on at the same time.  Cancer shades every relationship and interaction in the novel. It’s filled with deep reflections on life and experience, but, for all that, it’s also a hugely optimistic, laugh-out-loud read.

Death is ever-present in The Fault in Our Stars; Hazel knows from page one that she is going to die of her cancer and no last minute deus ex machina will offer her a reprieve.  This novel, however, isn’t about Death. It’s a celebration of Life, in all its beauty and complexity.