Mr. Penumbra's 24-Hour Bookstore (Mr. Penumbra's 24-Hour Bookstore, #1)

by Robin Sloan

Now I’ve resigned myself to sitting at the front desk, but I can’t stop squirming. If fidgets were Wikipedia edits, I would have completely revamped the entry on guilt by now, and translated it into five new languages.

You can never escape the sixth grade entirely.

That’s almost cute: Don’t forget your ruler on your first day of cult!

Neel takes a sharp breath and I know exactly what it means. It means: I have waited my whole life to walk through a secret passage built into a bookshelf.

I blink and wait and wonder about the mice and/or bats and/or minotaur.

KNITTING IS NEAT.

It’s so simple. Of course, of course. The first-grader is right. It’s easy to find a needle in a haystack! Ask the hays to find it!