I've given a lot of books 5 stars ratings lately (well, a lot for me anyway) but to me, they all deserve it. (Or else why would I give them 5 star ratings?) Mr. Penumbra's 24-Hour Bookstore gets its rating for the pure joy I felt while reading it and the fact that I put off everything else I should have been doing to knock it off in an afternoon/evening. I wish I had taken more time. 
 Mr. Penumbra's 24-Hour Bookstore is quirky, imaginative and full of off-key characters who you can't help but adore. Clay Jannon has no idea what he's walking into when he answers the 'Help Wanted' ad in the window of Mr. Penumbra's 24-Hour Bookstore. He doesn't know why a bookstore needs to be 24 hours or why a certain type of customer doesn't buy any books at all, but comes back again and again to borrow old volumes full of code. All that is about to change with the help of his talented friends, Clay starts to piece together the mystery surrounding the bookstore and its enigmatic owner. 
 This was so much fun to read. Mr. Penumbra's 24-Hour Bookstore sounds like a place I would love to go and browse for hours on end. The book is funny, a bit crazy and definitely far-fetched and has a neat little ending where the loose ends are tied up a little too perfectly - but I adored it. The characters were larger than life, and their curiousity and dedication to the project was infectious. The tech-speak was a little over my head, but that seemed hardly important in the grand scheme of things. The breaking of an ancient code kept in an old book in a basement that very few people know about, matched with the power of Google and all the things that technology can do for us. Trips across the country searching for the pieces of the puzzle, that quest (seems an appropriate description) for knowledge and those one-track people who won't give up... 
 Read this book. Do it. You won't regret it.