I have come to believe that food is history of the deepest kind. Everything we eat tells a tale of ingenuity and creation, domination and justice--and does so more vividly than any other artifact, any other medium.I am a foodie. Not the annoying hoity toity variety, more that I subscribe to the live to eat versus eat to live motto. I love a sumptuous meal, skillfully prepared and artfully served; I also love an uncomplicated meal with simple ingredients shared with family or friends. And I love

I adored the first half of this book but the second half was just....so, so odd.

This is a quixotic and whimsical magical fantasy teeming with warmth, charm and quirky characters. Lois Clary is a software programmer lured from her home and comfortable job to move to San Francisco with a lucrative financial and benefits package offered by General Dexterity, a robotics company. There she finds she is expected to commit body and soul and every hour in search of cutting edge robotic arm improvements. This takes it toll on her life, health and spirits as she develops a knot in he...

***IF YOU ARE LOOKING FOR A WELL WRITTEN FUN READ RIGHT NOW, I HIGHLY RECOMEND THIS BOOK, NOW IN PAPERBACK, ETC ***Oh what a wonderful, funny, insightful, delightful and page turning read this book by Robin Sloan was! I had read Mr. Penumbra’s 24 hour bookstore and had always hoped that it had found a wide audience. This book is even better!Our main character Lois has done everything right. She got a good degree from college, did a couple of summers of internships and was immediately offered a

oooh, goodreads choice awards semifinalist for best fiction! what will happen?this is the same kind of breezy good fun as the author’s debut, Mr. Penumbra's 24-Hour Bookstore, but while that one was about computer-savvy booknerds having secret-society-based adventures in san francisco, this one is about computer-savvy FOODnerds having secret-society-based adventures in san francisco. so, totes different dynamic. that might sound like me having a go at sloane, but i’m not at all - i love books an...

The Recipe 1 part Mr. Penumbra's 24-Hour Bookstore formula (bookstore/font = Farmer's Market/sourdough starter) 1 Evil corporation which wants to ruin food1/2 glutinous plot 1/4 overt message 3/4 ridiculous denouement 1/8 tsp technology 8 trite caricatures Mix together and foist on unsuspecting lovers of Mr. Penumbra, collect proceeds. This book was so bad I'm angry. Sloan's first book was cute and fun because it was a surprise - this book was the same formula/different topic. Sorry, but you don...

4.5★“She explained that a software sieve had scanned my résumé and flagged it as promising, and that she agreed with the computer’s assessment. Here’s a thing I believe about people my age: we are the children of Hogwarts, and more than anything, we just want to be sorted.”Like the author’s earlier Mr. Penumbra's 24-Hour Bookstore, this book is a quirky bit of fantasy, science fiction, and fun, and I enjoyed it equally. Lois grew up surrounded by computers at a time when she says they were wooin...

Living in Silicon Valley for many years - the Bay Area my entire life - Berkeley- Oakland- San Francisco - and San Jose.... I know many techie-self starters .... Startup companies is synonymous with Silicon Valley as Sourdough French Bread is synonymous with San Francisco. Mix it all together and Robin Sloan has written the ultimate startup-sourdough novel that could ‘only’ have taken place in the Bay Area. Software robotics developer - Lois Clary - from Michigan- moved to the heart of the start...

A sourdough starter opens the door to a mysterious underground world in near future San Francisco. Like most Sloan stories, this requires a healthy amount of suspending disbelief, but worth it. This was a very fun read, in fact I feel I should use the word "delightful." I want a spicy sandwich!Carb nerds.. malevolent bread... I feel like giggling again.Thanks to the publisher for providing a copy through Edelweiss.

Lois Clary is a software engineer writing codes for a San Francisco Robotic company. She notices a takeout menu and decides to make a purchase. It sure beats the "slurry" (nutritive gel packs) that she normally eats. Heck, she becomes Clement Street Soup and Sourdough’s “Number One eater” She then learns her favorite restaurant is closing and the two brothers who own it, leave her with the starter for their sourdough bread. This is not your usual starter!Almost overnight, Lois becomes quite the

this book felt like a friend. it made me make bread. it made me think about our priorities in life and how important it is to live a life you love.

I'm between 4 and 4.5 stars here. Well, now that we've gotten that out of the way...The above GIF probably clues you in on one of the reasons I requested this book from NetGalley the minute I saw it. (My obsessive love of carbs aside, I was a huge fan of Robin Sloan's last book, Mr. Penumbra's 24-Hour Bookstore—see my original review—so that had something to do with it, too!)Lois Clary is a software engineer who moves her life from Michigan to San Francisco after receiving a job offer from Gener...

This book was great! It is fun and quirky. I think you can read it either to find purpose and meaning, or just for a nice, quick read.I am definitely a Robin Sloan fan. I enjoyed Mr. Penumbra's 24-Hour Bookstore as well so I was looking forward to this one. While his stuff can be a bit out there (it definitely falls in the Magical Realism category), it is not so out there that it is hard to stay engaged. It is like he takes things from our normal, everyday lives and tweaks them slightly towards

This book is about a woman baking bread and how this process transforms her and her life. I know, sounds simple, right?Well, if you have baked bread you know there's a lot more to it than just putting the ingredients together. First, you have to understand that there is something different about baking sourdough bread, you have to have a "starter". ​​(image source)A "starter" is a fermented combination of yeast, good bacteria, bread and water. Generally, you have to feed it every day, it is aliv...

A novel that begins with such promise as it opens with a witty look at office life for the employees of the pioneering San Francisco technology companies and the fortunes of newly recruited and blissfully naive Lois Clary ends up with author Robin Sloan overworking the dough. Stretching credibility in the second half, what starts as an engaging comedy focusing on a young robotics engineer descends into a convoluted fairytale whilst attempting to make some wider commentary with parallels to socie...

A difficult book to rate. Starts mouth-wateringly run-don't-walk to your nearest bakery charmingly versed, but woefully crumbles right at the end. The audiobook reader is phenom!

Nutritive gel for dinner! People do this! That sounds like a futuristic overpopulated planet and dwindling resources scenario. At least, Soylent Green looked like it had texture and mouthfeel.Anyway, our young hero gets to eat something a lot better, than nutritive gel slurry. She becomes launched on an adventure in baking. It is all very cute and kind. Fluffy like the inside of the loaf. I didn’t get a lot out of it. It’s pleasant. Maybe, I’m jealous. My starter doesn’t sing and smile.

Very entertaining, breezy and quirky! I love Robin Sloan's unique "brand" - a mishmash of bleeding edge technology, magical realism and nerdy eccentricity. Stir it all together and you have an adventure like no one else's!Lois Clary is a computer engineer specializing in robotics. She is lured from the Detroit auto industry to a cutting edge robotics firm in San Francisco where she works long stressful hours and subsists on a nutritive gel called "Slurry." (Yuck) One day she finds an advertiseme...

Two truisms: 1) You don’t want to stand behind an elephant after it eats spicy food; and2) It’s really hard to read a book called Sourdough and not want sourdough bread, especially when said book includes numerous scenes in which the main character is baking said deliciousness. Notwithstanding that constant distraction, what stands out most about Sourdough is Robin Sloan’s ability to marry technology and whimsy in a way that feels organic (and yes, pun intended vis-à-vis the strange foodie subcu...

Interesting, entertaining, touches of magical realism. Who knew that so much could go on in the making of Sourdough bread!So in case the reader is unaware, first we find out about the starter needed to make the bread and then we learn about microbes and what they do, and it is all very factual but delivered in a fun way via story. We are aware that the starter is a living organism and that the one we are dealing with is very special. Then the fun starts!I enjoyed the book very much even when it