Imagine, for a moment, a bookstore open at 3am. It’s dim, quiet, warm, and smells like old paper and just a hint of dust. By the window a young man sits reading and deep in the shelves an eccentric woman scales a ladder up into a secret-laden darkness. Once she’s found the right leather bound text she leaves, without paying, while the young man records odd data about her appearance, mood, and choice of text into a logbook holding a hundred years of records. A few hours later the boy has barely moved and another strange person arrives to play out nearly the exact same scene.

This is Mr. Penumbra’s 24-Hour Bookstore, a book by Robin Sloan. While it is not a fantasy story or fairytale, there is something in it that feels just a little bit magical. Before I worked in a bookstore, this book gave me my first idea that perhaps I’d like to. I dreamed of reading late into the night behind a desk with a rotating cast of customers looking for just the right story. I’ve found being a bookseller to be a bit different from this early imagining (of course), but the touch of magic I first found in Penumbra’s store has carried over.

This book is one for days when you need a story to sweep you away. When I first stumbled across it I read it in a single night and every time I pick it up I struggle to put it back down. It is at once an adventure, a mystery, a character study, and a love letter to the magic of books.

H Rooker is the Assistant Store Manager at Still North Books and Bar, and a lifelong New Englander.

You’ll find links to all the previous Enthusiasms here.

Enthusiasms: Kari Meutsch on “The Bright Sword” by Lev Grossman (1)