Author: Robin Sloan

Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux; First Edition edition (October 2, 2012)

Publication date: October 2nd 2012

Hardcover: 304 pages
Rating: 3.5/5

Nerds are awesome! Nerds are cool! Nerd out! Let your nerd flag fly! Seriously!

Upon finishing this quite eccentric yet totally awesome book, this nonsensical blubber is the result. Mr. Sloan, I don't know where to begin with this except to tell you that: YOU ARE SUCH A NERD, BUT AN AWESOME ONE AT THAT. Really. Awesome.

Okay so maybe I have overused the word 'awesome' already, but I cannot think of a better word to describe this feeling I have in connection to this awesome book. Okay enough with the awesomes.

The hero of this novel is Clay Jannon, a graphic designer with mediocre programming skills who has become unemployed due to the recession. He ends up with the late night shift at a bookstore, where everything is not what it seems. The rules set by the mysterious owner Mr. Penumbra are at first simple: 1. You must not be late. 2. You must not browse, read or inspect the shelved volumes in the bookstore (otherwise known as the Wayback List).

Well, obviously, curiosity strikes and Clay finds himself breaking the rules Penumbra laid down for him, as Penumbra always hoped and expected him to. From this, Clay discovers that this isn't about a weird book club for old people, but is actually a secret society trying to decode a 500-year old encoded volume with gibberish language that actually contains the secret to the greatest question: How do we live forever?