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A review by jennifer
Mr. Penumbra's 24-Hour Bookstore by Robin Sloan
5.0
A great book for anyone who, like me, works in tech and loves books and writing. I particularly enjoyed the parallels drawn between these two arenas, like when the protagonist, Clay, compares a programming language, Ruby, to the poetry of Billy Collins or when the love interest, Kat, posits that writers have had their historical go at impacting the human OS (citing Shakespeare's invention of the internal monologue) and now it's the turn of developers.
Speaking of OSs, the novel includes a crude version of the date scene in Spike Jonze's Her when Clay attends a party at Kat's via video on her laptop. It is also reminded me a bit of Maria Semple's Where'd You Go, Bernadette? only poking fun at Google instead of Microsoft. One of the funniest scenes take place at Google, where Kat works, when Clay comes to visit her and has to get in the "externals" lunch line because all the Google employees are given stimulants in their food. Suffice it to say if you liked Her (which I really wish would have been a novel before a film) and you liked Bernadette, I think you'll like this.
Speaking of OSs, the novel includes a crude version of the date scene in Spike Jonze's Her when Clay attends a party at Kat's via video on her laptop. It is also reminded me a bit of Maria Semple's Where'd You Go, Bernadette? only poking fun at Google instead of Microsoft. One of the funniest scenes take place at Google, where Kat works, when Clay comes to visit her and has to get in the "externals" lunch line because all the Google employees are given stimulants in their food. Suffice it to say if you liked Her (which I really wish would have been a novel before a film) and you liked Bernadette, I think you'll like this.