An unemployed web designer takes a night-shift job at a strange San Francisco bookstore and is drawn into a secret society, the Unbroken Spine, obsessed with a five-hundred-year-old cipher devised by the real Renaissance printer Aldus Manutius.
Books mentioned in Mr. Penumbra's 24-Hour Bookstore (13)
House of Leaves by Mark Z. Danielewski: “"Stephenson, Murakami, the latest Gibson, The Information, House of Leaves, fresh editions of Moffat"—I point them out as I go.”
The Information by Martin Amis: “"Stephenson, Murakami, the latest Gibson, The Information, House of Leaves, fresh editions of Moffat"—I point them out as I go.”
Steve Jobs by Walter Isaacson: “Steve Jobs peered out of the white cover, hand on his chin, wearing round glasses that looked a bit like Penumbra's.”
The Invisible Man by H. G. Wells: “In the stack, there are copies of Moby-Dick, Ulysses, The Invisible Man—this is a bar for bibliophiles.”
Moby-Dick by Herman Melville: “Same bibliophiles'-bar passage: "there are copies of Moby-Dick, Ulysses, The Invisible Man."”
Cannery Row by John Steinbeck: “Halfway through the first chapter of Cannery Row, the screen flashes black, freezes, then fades.”
The Maltese Falcon by Dashiell Hammett: “...shelves full of gibberish get all the attention while The Maltese Falcon gathers dust?”
Harry Potter by J. K. Rowling: “...he cracked the supposedly uncrackable Harry Potter series and posted all seven e-books on his site, free to download.”