Skyfoos.

Have you ever been good-sad?  My wife is really into the Enneagram lately (for the uninitiated, it's a personality test focused on your motivation for living and behaving the way you do). Like, she's REALLY into it. I've learned some by osmosis, and I learned that number Four on the Enneagram is a kind of person who doesn't mind being sad or focusing on sad things. In some ways, a Four enjoys being a little melancholic. I have no idea if Khaled Hosseini, author of The Kite Runner , is a Four, but his book feels like it. Part of the reason one might enjoy being a little sad is because you know you're sad for a reason. Like, "this sadness will bring about good things, because what's making me sad is true and truth brings out good things." So in Kite Runner , the main character is a man with a guilty conscience and no, [spoilers] he never clears his conscience. He makes a few brave decisions in succession toward the end and sort of goes back to...

I don't often do spontaneous book-buys. It's the one area of my life where I plan and plan carefully. This year, my goal is to read more from non-white, non-male authors (doing okay - I just had to quit a book from female Nigerian author because I couldn't get through it...it's a work in progress).  But even so, I bought this book out of the blue. I found it via some Instagram hashtag one day, went and bought it the day after that, and had it finished within 72 hours of the first time I ever heard of it. It was a whirlwind. Robin Sloan killed it with this novel.  Ready Player One is a better nerd-fantasy novel of silliness, but Mr. Penumbra's 24-hour Bookstore has more honest heart. I loved every character. Every character is a nerd, and I therefore saw a side of myself in each character. By the way, my sides are painted in Sherwin-William's color Nighttime NerdScape, used for painting Bill Gates' mansion and the inside of Stephen Colbert...