Escape Pod 215: Mr. Penumbra’s Twenty-Four-Hour Book Store
Mr. Penumbra’s Twenty-Four-Hour Book Store
By Robin Sloan
IT’S 2:02 A.M. ON A COLD SUMMER NIGHT.
I’m sitting in a book store next to a strip club.
Not that kind of book store. The inventory here is incredibly old and impossibly rare. And it has a secret—a secret that I might have just discovered.
I am alone in the store. And then, tap-tap, suddenly I’m not.
And now I’m pretty sure I’m about to snap my laptop shut, run screaming out the front door, and never return.
About the Author
Robin Sloan
Robin Sloan’s first novel, Mr. Penumbra’s 24-Hour Bookstore, was a New York Times Best Seller, translated into more than twenty languages. His latest novel, Sourdough, was published in 2017. With his partner Kathryn Tomajan, Robin produces California extra virgin olive oil under the label Fat Gold. He lives in Oakland and works out of the Murray Street Media Lab in South Berkeley, down by the railroad tracks.
About the Narrator
Serah Eley
Serah Eley is the original producer, editor and host of Escape Pod. She mispronounced her name as Steve Eley at the time, but has since realized that life is much more fun as a woman, and came out as transgender in 2015. Serah lives in Atlanta, Georgia, with her two spouses (she prefers “spice”), Sadi and Cat.
So if there were ever any betting pools on what happened to Steve: the dark-horse winner is “changed sex and joined a committed lesbian love triangle.” She is, obviously, still Having Fun.
