Dare I say it, this was even better than Mr. Penumbra's! I enjoyed every moment of it & already can't wait for Sloan's next one.

Warm. Hot. Bread. It is the stuff my dreams are made of. So when I read the synopsis of Robin Sloan's novel, Sourdough I knew I had to read it… and it did not disappoint. Sourdough is the story of Lois Clary, a coder at a massive robotics company who works ridiculously long hours and has zero social life. The only people she has regular contact with are two brothers who run the local neighborhood restaurant and deliver her dinner every evening. When the brothers face Visa problems and are forced to leave the country, they end up on Lois’s doorstep one last time, entrusting her with their precious sourdough starter, begging her to keep it for them and bake with it.

Lois has never baked a day in her life but she soon discovers the starter seems to have a life of its own. And the bread she creates from it is DELICIOUS. She finds herself selling her loaves to friends, the cafeteria at her robotics company and then branching out to local farmers markets. A whole new world is opening up to Lois and she must decide what it is that she wants to do. This book was just a pure unexpected delight for me. I loved everything about it. It was definitely a more unconventional story, (there are baking robot arms, competitive chefs, eccentric foodies, and a sourdough starter that is very much “alive”), and I absolutely adored every part of it. If you are a believer in comfort food or chasing your dreams to do what brings you joy, then this is a must read for you. 4.5 charming stars.

Lois, a software engineer, works hard all day and at night orders her dinner from a small place owned by two brothers. When the brothers have to close because of Visa issues, they leave Lois their sourdough starter that she learns to feed and bake bread. Soon she is eating her own bread as well as baking for the software company's cafeteria. She starts selling her bread at the farmer's market and a whole new world opens up for her.

Thanks to the publisher for providing an e-ARC of Sourdough via Netgalley.

I rarely read a book all in one setting and I rarely give a book five stars but, then, a book like Sourdough is rare. This is such a “Tell Me a Story” book; it grabbed me from the very first sentence and pulled me into its world.

Alright, let’s back up for a minute and talk about what this is about. Yes, you’ve read the description, so you know it’s about Lois Clary, who is an overworked San Francisco coder whose life changes when she is given a tub of sourdough starter/culture. But the description doesn’t tell you about Beo and Chaiman, the brothers who cooked and delivered spicy soup and insanely good sourdough bread to her every night, curing her stress belly and saving her from becoming a coding drone. You barely get to know Beo and Chaiman before they have to leave San Francisco, but they leap off the page, and Beo writes delightful emails to Lois after they’re gone.

When Lois succumbs to the magic of bread, she balances her work at the robotics company with more and more baking. She even manages to meld the two and, in the process meeting more and more interesting people, from a club of women named Lois to the food fanatics of the artisan food markets. Especially for those familiar with San Francisco, the settings are fun, too, from funky south of Market industrial buildings converted to tech sites, to the Ferry Building, to old Alameda base.

The story gets a little crazy, maybe too crazy, but I was enchanted. I liked Robin Sloan’s Mr. Penumbra’s 24-Hour Bookstore very much, but this one I loved. At the beginning, there is what seems like a throwaway line about whether you call it sourdough “starter” or “culture,” but as I read the book, I decided that both had real meaning in the book. The substance is a starter for Lois, in that it starts her down a whole new path, and that path introduces her to new cultures that grow and change her. I hope that doesn’t make the book sound hokey, because mainly it’s just great entertainment.

The word that comes to mind to me is "delightful." This is a warm, fun, thoughtful, sweet novel with a unique plot, so specific that I'd think it was based on a true story, but cannot imagine it could be.

What drives this book in the same way as Sloan's previous "Mr Penumbra's 24-Hour Bookstore" is a relentless curiosity about the world. He (and we) enjoy simply being around smart, curious, innovative characters. Sloan seems ambivalent (or at least conflicted) about whether the technology is a panacea, which helps let you make up your own mind.

All of which makes this sound like a technology-based book, but it is far from it. If anything, it's about food and food culture. I have almost zero foodie in me, but I couldn't help but be charmed by the story and the author's obvious affection for his characters.

I wasn't totally sold on the ending, which accelerated plot, got a little surreal, and tied up a lot of loose ends quickly, but really enjoyed spending my time in this world.

4.5 stars

I absolutely loved this unique, beautiful, frequently hilarious, life-affirming book. I am a huge fan of Mr. Penumbra’s 24-Hour Bookstore and was thrilled to have the opportunity to read Robin Sloan’s new work early; thankfully, Sourdough does not disappoint. Lois Clary works incredibly long hours at a robotics company in San Francisco and almost nightly orders takeout from two brothers who operate a nearby neighborhood restaurant. The brothers encounter visa issues and are forced to leave the U.S. They grant Lois a small gift of their special sourdough starter with instructions to keep it alive by feeding it and playing it music. This present sets Lois down a new path she never could have envisioned and changes the course of her life.

Although the book seems to take place in present day, the book includes futuristic components such as liquid meal replacement called Slurry consumed by some individuals in lieu of regular food and robotic elements not yet achieved in our everyday life. I enjoyed the occasional futuristic element and felt that these items added a thought-provoking component to the book. Sloan’s writing is lovely, and his frequent sly, witty comments had me constantly cracking up. I also like his method of alternating between Lois’ tale and emails from one of the brothers; it was a very effective way to allow the story to unfold. Sourdough is enhanced by clever, quirky things like Lois’ cactus named Kubrick, a Lois Club with chapters in numerous cities for women named Lois (the Lois Club in SF was one of my favorite parts of the story), Lois’ nickname by the brothers of “Number One Eater”, and a brochure offered to Lois by the company nurse when she is sick entitled “Taking Care of Yourself While You’re Changing the World”.

There is so much packed into this book, and I am still thinking about the story long after I finished it. I do not want to ruin the joy of reading Sourdough for the first time by describing any more of Lois’ adventures so I will end my review here. Sourdough is a quick, laugh-out-loud, very enjoyable read for anyone who enjoys creatively told tales. I highly recommend it. Thanks to NetGalley and Farrar, Straus, & Giroux for the ARC in exchange for an honest review.

Technology and mythology. Wonderful characters. Baking and robots. A club made up of women named Lois. I absolutely lived Mr Penumbra's Bookstore and I absolutely loved this, I finished it in an afternoon. A perfect read!

Immense thanks to NetGalley, the publisher and Robin Sloan for the opportunity to read his latest work - I loved it!

I was a huge fan of Mr. Penumbra's 24-Hour Bookstore - I bought it for presents because other people just needed to read it! Then along comes Sourdough - I know that I will be buying this for people also. It's like Sloan knows me - first, a book about books and then a book about baking bread!

Lois is a brilliant young computer coder, wooed to San Francisco from Detroit to work on robotic arms. She finds herself in the company of people just like her, working all the time, even sleeping at work, eating Slurry (a nutritive gel) just for sustenance. When Lois tries a new restaurant, offering spicy soup and sourdough bread, she feels herself becoming a bit more human. When the restaurant owners have to leave, they gift Lois with their magical sourdough starter. Lois feeds it, learns about baking bread and it changes her life.

A magical story (Sloan is the king of putting the touch of magic in his books) that really stresses what it is to be passionate, human, and in touch with all that makes us so, including food and taking the time to make it yourself. In this fast food world, this is a love story to farmers, farm markets, and all of us who love to create food with our own hands. Sourdough bread is the perfect analogy - it's alive, it needs nurturing and love.

I didn't want this book to end - unless it was to hop online and order my King Arthur Sourdough Starter! Very highly recommended!

What a delightful, fun book. Lois is a software engineer when two immigrant brothers have to leave the country and leave their bread starter to her. What does Lois do. Bake bread of course. A club just for Loises, amateur food mavens, robotics and goats, what more could you ask for? Beware when you finish this book you will be inspired to bake some bread.

Well now I'm craving spicy soup and sourdough bread!

Lois is a young employee of General Dexterity, programming robot arms to do everyday tasks. Her hectic schedule keeps her isolated from people outside of the office. Her only interactions are with a nearby Lois Club (apparently a real thing!) and the brothers who run the restaurant where she gets most of her food.

When the brothers must leave the country, they give her their ancient sourdough started. Through baking, Lois finds the community she craves.

I'm not sure if I would call this book surreal or magical realism. The Marrow Fair Market, an experimental market where Lois begins to sell her bread, seems like a magical place, where old world foods are combined with cutting edge technology. The started that sings and emits light is pure magical realism.

I liked some of the conundrums brought up in this book. General Dexterity's mission is to program robots to do menial tasks so humans can focus on more meaningful things, yet Lois finds meaning in the menial task of baking.

I really enjoyed this book and honestly found it kind of inspiring. Lois comes out of her shell and expands her little world through trying her hand a a new skill. I think this is something we should all consider and try something new and out of our comfort zone!

I'm between 4 and 4.5 stars here.

Lois Clary is a software engineer who moves her life from Michigan to San Francisco after receiving a job offer from General Dexterity, a prestigious robotics company with the ambition of replacing the actual workforce with robots. She and her fellow Dextrous spend days, nights, every waking minute coding and rewriting lines of code to make the company's robotic arms function in a more human way.

Even though she's surrounded by people, and sometimes finds herself sleeping at work, Lois still leads a fairly lonely existence. The only person she sees outside of the office is one of the two brothers who run Clement Street Soup and Sourdough, the hole-in-the-wall takeout place from where she orders dinner nearly every night. She orders the same thing all the time, too—a "double spicy"—a combo of Spicy Soup and Spicy Sandwich.

"If Vietnamese pho's healing powers, physical and psychic, make traditional chicken noodle soup seem like dishwater—and they do—then this spicy soup, in turn, dishwatered pho. It was an elixir. The sandwich was spicier still, thin-sliced vegetables slathered with a fluorescent red sauce, the burn buffered by thick slabs of bread artfully toasted. First my stomach unclenched, and then my brain."

Lois quickly becomes the brothers' "Number one eater," but her dependence on them isn't enough to keep them in San Francisco, as visa issues force them to leave the country. But they don't leave Lois empty-handed. Beoreg, the creator of the double spicy, gifts Lois their culture—err, the sourdough starter they use to make their bread. He gives Lois explicit instructions on how to feed and care for it so it stays alive, which includes playing it music.

It's not long before Lois, who has never cooked a thing in her life, starts baking sourdough, and she quickly becomes immersed in the baking community, particularly the sourdough community, which is a pretty passionate one. Not only is her bread good, but each loaf somehow bakes with a face forming on the top. Her bread becomes a favorite of her colleagues, neighbors, and friends, until the demand starts increasing beyond what someone with an intense full-time job can handle.

Lois also quickly realizes that the starter Beoreg gave her isn't just your run-of-the-mill starter. It has distinct behavior patterns and enjoys different types of music. What has she gotten herself into?

The General Dexterity chef convinces Lois to take her bread to the "auditions" for the Bay Area's farmers market community, and Lois finds herself connecting with a mysterious underground market in the developmental stages. The people in this market are at the fringes of the culinary world, and they are increasingly dependent on technology to produce their wares. For the first time in her life, Lois discovers her true passion and a fascinating group of people who are passionate about food and technology.

"Food is history of the deepest kind. Everything we eat tells a tale of ingenuity and creation, domination and injustice—and does so more vividly than any other artifact, any other media."

Sourdough is quirky, compelling, thought-provoking, and tremendously enjoyable, even if you have to suspend your disbelief a bit, particularly as the book reaches its conclusion. The book has a fascinating cast of characters and a terrific premise. Who among us hasn't wished we could be in a position to pursue what we feel most passionate about? How many of us have dreamed of being part of a community of people that truly "gets" us? And how many of us have really stopped to consider just what fuels the production of sourdough?

As I discovered when I read Mr. Penumbra's 24-Hour Bookstore, I love the way Robin Sloan writes. Food is the source of different types of passion for so many people, and if you throw in a sourdough starter of mysterious provenance and a bunch of people striving to change the culinary world, how can you go wrong? At times the book may be a little too zany for its own good, but I was hooked from the very start.

If you're afraid of carbs, you may want to steer clear of this book, because I definitely have been craving big slabs of sourdough since I read this!!

NetGalley and Farrar, Straus and Giroux provided me an advance copy of the book in exchange for an unbiased review. Thanks for making this available!

This is a fun read for both techies and foodies. Lois, the coder, turned sourdough bread baker takes her sour dough bread to a farmers' market where she discovers a whole other food world. Now, with her "magic" starter and her robot arm, strange things begin to happen. Sci-fi at its funniest.

**Review will be published to blog on 03 Sep 2017 at 10:00AM EST**

I chose this book because:

Robin Sloan! I first read his Mr. Penumbra’s 24-Hour Bookstore because it’s a favourite of quite a few of my friends so I wanted to check it out myself, and I ended up loving it, as a book lover and as someone interested in tech. I was unprepared for the tech aspect of Mr. Penumbra’s 24-Hour Bookstore but it was such a pleasant surprise. When I found out that Sloan was getting another book out, I was immediately intrigued just by the name of the author alone, but also because I am a lover of food (especially bread omg bread is life) and I’m still someone interested in tech. I’m excited to see what Sloan does for the world of food like he did for the world of books.

Upon reading it:

Even though I’d probably categorise this book as sci-fi, what with the food and technology, there was definitely also something a little fantastical about this story. When I started reading this book, I was thinking, What’s a starter? Sounds fake. But then again, I would have thought that proofing bread was fake if not for watching The Great British Bake Off. For those of you as clueless about bread as me, sourdough starter is in fact a real thing. But the Mazg sourdough starter has its own special qualities.

I enjoyed immersing myself in this wonderland of sourdough starters, intrigued by the food chemistry that was seemingly magic (for a n00b like me), as well as by the mysterious Mazg. Who were they and how did they come upon this sourdough starter and how does the starter do what it does and how and why is it superior to sourdough starters from other cultures? Lois, our protagonist, came upon the Mazg sourdough very suddenly and had to discover a lot for herself over time, so it was fun following along with her discovery process.

And unrelated but Slurry reminds me of Soylent and it’s funny because I have techy friends who are hooked on that stuff. Food science is real guys! Not magic! Just science!

Readers who enjoyed Mr. Penumbra’s 24-Hour Bookstore will enjoy Sourdough! There are similarities, such as the tone of writing (which is a huuuge part of my love for Sloan), and the fact that the story is about a seemingly ordinary part of life (in Mr. Penumbra’s 24-Hour Bookstore that’d be books, and in Sourdough that’d be bread) but has a touch of tech and a touch of magic and mystery—a secret world within the ordinary world. But this is a different mystery, so readers can look forward to a new adventure!

Reviewed on Goodreads and will post to Amazon on publication date. Lois is a programmer for General Dexterity, a San Francisco manufacturer of robot arms. She works a typical high-tech drone’s long day and subsists on Slurry, a semi-liquid diet “nutritionally complete and rich with probiotics….fully dystopian.” Her life is her job until she discovers the Double Spicy Combo at Clement Street Soup and Sourdough, a carryout run by two somewhat mysterious immigrant brothers. The Double Spicy and the magic sourdough bread that accompanies it are “delicious and mood-stabilizing”, and she finds she can sleep at night instead of “fitfully reviewing the day’s errors”. Life is better…until the brothers suddenly leave the country, making a last delivery to their “Number one eater” Lois: a gift of their “culture”, the sourdough starter that proves to be just the starter Lois needs for her life.
Okay, the obvious path for Lois to follow would be to open a bakery, but that seems rather predictable and hardly the type of thing one would expect from the author of Mr. Penumbra’s 24-Hour Bookstore. Lois cherishes her new culture and is eager to uncover and sustain its magic, but she doesn’t give up on technology. It is fun to read about her efforts to crack the problem of teaching a robot arm to crack an egg, for example. There’s even DNA sequencing. Lois finds a like-minded community in the group of artisans at Marrow Fair, a place to encourage new ideas, new tools, and new food under the sponsorship of the mysterious Mr. Marrow. There is the Lois Club to give Lois a dose of old-fashioned feminine support. And regular e-mails from Beo, one of the brothers from the Clement Street Soup and Sourdough. I was never sure quite where the story would go next, but I certainly wanted to find out.
There is humor, like when Lois brushes off a would-be suitor by saying if he ”wanted to ask a lady out, he could do it via text message like a normal person.” I learned a new word I had not imagined existing, “pareidolia” (Look it up and work it into your next conversation!). There is certainly whimsy. You will need a good store of suspension of disbelief as Lois explores the music of the starter, the many faces of her loaves, and the history of the Mazq people who have nurtured the starter for centuries.
This was a fun book to read, and it was meant to be, but it does tackle some important topics, like the value of a satisfying personal life, the importance of community, and the role of food. The references to Voltaire’s Candide are not coincidental. I appreciated that Sloan doesn’t make the issue of food in particular an easy one. Mr.Marrow looks at the big industrialists with the corn syrup and factory farms versus the “toy supply chains” of the farm-to-table movement and concludes that both sides have failed to find a good answer. Sourdough doesn’t find the answer either, which can be a bit disappointing, but Lois finds her answer, and that is perhaps the most anyone can expect.
My thanks to Netgalley for an advance copy of this book for review.

https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/2095992976?book_show_action=false&from_review_page=1

Struggling tech worker, Lois, finds herself alone in San Francisco working such long taxing hours that she can't even enjoy her over-priced apartment by the Bay. Her stomach roils with her loneliness, despair and angst as she endeavors to develop code to solve ever-new problems posed at work. One day she tries a new food delivery service and is blown away by the meal, double spicy sandwich and soup. Miraculously her stomach settles and she finally gets some sleep. She becomes the number one customer until visa problems send the purveyors back to their home country, leaving Lois with the starter for their sourdough bread. Always one to follow good instructions, Lois decides to try baking the sourdough bread herself and finds some beginner's luck. The bread is fantastic. From there, the tale spins on its own winding from San Francisco to the East Bay and a strange futuristic market in Alameda. Author Robin Sloan doesn't disappoint with an eye towards the absurd as he engages wit and whimsy in this story of yeast gone wild. This is one great tale that will leave you hungry for more every step of the way. I received my copy from the publisher through NetGalley.

Lois is plodding along in her job as a programmer for a company that makes robotic arms. A chance call to a takeout place leads eventually to the inheritance of the chef's mysterious sourdough bread starter. Suddenly, Lois is a bread baker, thrust into the strange world of San Francisco's mafia-like farmers markets. I just love the way Sloan is able to combine the surreal near-future tech world with something as concrete and old world as bread-baking.

When I saw Robin Sloan (Mr. Penumbra’s 24-Hour Bookstore) had a new book I was so excited to get an ARC from Netgalley. I thought the premise was pretty good and when the futuristic technology kicked in the story made me laugh out loud. You get a little understanding how Sourdough starter must be loved and nurtured and as Lois learns the ins and outs of the process she discovers an underground lifestyle that is mysterious and fun.

Who knew a book about sourdough could be so fun and interesting? Loved it and read it straight through in one sitting.

When life gets dull and mundane, the ideal solution is to pick up one of Robin Sloan's wildly imaginative books and take off for parts unknown. I was captivated by his debut novel Mr. Penumbra's 24 Hour Bookstore, and enjoyed his upcoming novel just as much. Thank you to the publisher for giving me the opportunity to read an advance copy.

Any book called Sourdough must be set in San Francisco, which comes across as one of the most engaging characters in this book. While Lois, our intrepid heroine, a robot arm programmer turned master baker, is engaging and relatable, the enigmatic sourdough starter she's gifted at the beginning of the book is the real star of the show. The starter is given to her by the two brothers who run her favorite local source of spicy noodles, and takes on a strange personality of its own very quickly. It turns out to be very high maintenance, requiring a steady dose of "the music of the Mazg" and regular feedings and it grows stronger and more menacing daily.

When Lois turns her back on the soulless work environment and her coworkers, "the cold-eyed wraiths of General Dexterity," to begin baking her own sourdough, the book takes us on a wild journey from the country's tech capital to a secret underground farmer's market which celebrates innovative local food. Lois is invited to bake for the market because "a market in the Bay Area needs, at minimum, three things. It needs fancy coffee, weird honey, and sourdough bread."

We discover with Lois a community of gluten nerds who celebrate the love of baking and build eccentric brick ovens to turn out perfect crusty loaves. We also come across the master of microbes who sings the praises of the enormous colonies of microbes in yeast which produce the bread and beer we love to consume without thinking of their origins.

When Lois "explained the process by which living sourdough starter gave the bread its texture and flavor, [her coworker] Garrett’s eyes were wide with disbelief. 'It was … alive,' he said softly. Wonderingly. He, like me, had never before considered where bread came from, or why it looked the way it did. This was us, our time and place: we could wrestle sophisticated robots into submission, but were confounded by the most basic processes of life."

I won't share any more of this surprising story or exceedingly unlikely plot developments because I want you to discover if for yourself. If you enjoy good food and good books, don't miss the opportunity to pick up a copy when Sourdough is published in September. You'll never look at an innocent loaf of bread the same way again.