Robin Sloan completely enchanted me with Mr. Penumbra’s 24-Hour Bookstore. So when I found out he had a new book called Sourdough, I was completely intrigued. I was not disappointed! In this new book Sloan tackles foodie culture and bread baking with great verve and enthusiasm, while raising some interesting and challenging questions along the way.

Lois Clary moved from the mid-west to San Francisco to take a job with Genreal Dexterity, as a software engineer. She knew there might be some adjustments but what she didn’t expect was the demanding, competitive culture at the new company and the cost that would have on her life. She would drag herself in to work in the morning and drag herself home at night, with barely any time to eat, much less cook. Then one day she found a takeout menu in the mail and she took and chance and ordered. The delivery guy was happy and cheerful, a welcome human interaction after a day looking at computer screens, and the food was amazing. Especially the bread! Crusty on the outside, tender and moist on the inside, with a delightful sour, salty taste, it was the perfect compliment to the spicy food that came with it. Soon Lois was ordering from the two brothers who made this incredible bread and food everyday, and her life improved a little. Then one day when she called to place her order the brothers told her  that because of visa problems they were moving back to Europe.  As tries to imagine life without the brothers and their incredible food, she is surprised when they knock on her door and leave her a crock filled with the starter to make the sourdough bread she has enjoyed so much. “Feed it,” they say. “Play music to it,” they tell her. “Bake with it!” they challenger her and then they are gone.

Lois has never baked before in her life, but finds herself consumed with baking bread and tending to her starter. Soon she has too many loaves of bread to eat on her own and shares them with the people in her building, meeting them for the first time. Then she begins to take bread to work and shares it with her co-workers. Then the chef of the dining facilities at General Dexterity, tastes her bread and places an ongoing order with Lois for bread while encouraging Lois to think outside the box and see if she can begin to sell her bread at one of the local farmer’s markets in the area. Suddenly Lois is changinf the trajectory of her life and stepping into a brand new world, with its own enormous challenges, competition and intrigue.

Funny, ironic and completely absorbing, this book is both a paean to bread and good wholesome food, and a reproof to all the the fads and overly hyped trends in the food industry. Sloan creates in Lois a naive and incorruptible protagonist who follows her heart through the byzantine labyrinth of the San Francisco food industry and finds a way to follow her heart and her dreams. There is one drawback, however: You will crave crusty loaves of sourdough bread, long after you finish this book!

Brenda’s Rating: ****(4 Out Of 5 Stars)

Recommend this book to: Marian, Lauren, Keith and Sharon

Book Study Worthy: yes, while sharing sourdough bread!

Read in ebook format.