Monday, July 02, 2012

The penumbra of coincidence

(I love that word — penumbra.)

By some coincidence I happened to bookmark a couple items to check on later and on that later inspection they turned out to be related,

the first being Summer Reading, "a Reading Rainbow-esque video series" for grown-ups about books that this guy loves (although the series to date consists of just one video) and it's clear that his enthusiasm for books is genuine,

and the second being a mention and summary of Mr. Penumbra's 24-Hour Bookstore, which title is fabulous for the dual reason of "penumbra" and "24-hour bookstore" (aah! <- [sigh of pleasure]) and which I immediately added to my wishlist.

And these items are connected in this way:

Both the video series and the novel are by one Robin Sloan.

Read "Mr. Penumbra's 24-Hour Bookstore" — the utterly charming story on which the novel is based, featuring a night clerk at the titular shop whose job requirements include:

"You must keep precise records of all purchases. Time. Amount. The customer's appearance. His state of mind. How he asks for the book. How he receives it. Does he appear to be injured. Is he wearing a sprig of rosemary on his hat. And so on."

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

the book "the Rise of the image, the fall of the word" sounds very interesting. I read abook a few years ago (one that was written a year after this) called "the alphabet vs the goddess", which has a similar focal point. I think I will check it out.

I'll see about "Dr. Penumbra's" I have of a lot of fiction to read and to finish.