Mr. Penumbra's 24-Hour Bookstore

“It was paper that saved me” 

Here, Sloan suggests the ways in which paper media can provide a useful way to remain productive without being overwhelmed by the distractions of digital media. Significantly, Clay prints off hardcopies of employment adverts that he finds online and reads them as he walks. In this way, the novel emphasizes the complementary relationship of paper and digital media, rather than their opposition, and in doing so, advocates for the continued relevance of books and other forms of “paper” in a digital age. 

“‘What do you seek in these shelves?’” 

This is the question Mr. Penumbra poses to Clay the first time he enters the Bookstore in response to the “Help Wanted” sign. His somewhat archaic phrasing makes the question an enigmatic one and reinforces our impression of the bookstore as a mysterious space. Penumbra’s assumption that people enter bookstore’s in search of something—rather than just to browse or pass the time—emphasizes the novel’s interest in books as a repository of knowledge. 

“You see, to go with the second store, there’s a second set of customers—a small community of people who orbit the store like strange moons. They are nothing like North Face. They are older. They arrive with algorithmic regularity. They never browse. They come wide awake, completely sober and vibrating with need” 

This quotation marks Clay’s increasing suspicion that something strange is happening at Mr. Penumbra’s 24-Hour Bookstore. His description of the people he will later discover are novices of the Unbroken Spine alerts us to their status as a community, even though they are always alone. This, in turn, raises the idea of a knowledge community, people joined together not necessarily by acquaintance or proximity but through a shared interest and knowledge of a particular subject.