Sourdough by Robin Sloan, a book review...

I've been wanting to read this book for a while. I read the author's first book (Mr. Penumbra's 24 hr Bookstore) and enjoyed it so when I learned he had written another book I mentally added it to my To-Be-Read list. I walked past it a few times, and read the cover during my regular haunts of bookstores and libraries but never actually got down to the business of reading it until now. I am also someone who has tried to raise/keep a sourdough starter and cook with it but has not had good luck in that respect, so from that point of view the book also caught my interest. 

What a fun read! Need a good escape from the seriousness of life? Read this book. This book is hard to describe...there's a foodie focus, and having lived in the Bay area years ago I can relate to the setting and atmosphere created in the story. "Lois" is a software engineer leaving her comfort zone of a small town to go work for a technology whiz start-up company in the big city (San Francisco). She is spending all her time at the office with the other technological geniuses, who hardly even venture home from work and when they do they never cook. Lois soon relies on a local take-out and delivery joint for all her dinners and has food delivered nightly to her apartment. The place is run by two mysterious brothers, they cook the food and deliver soup and sourdough bread to her every night, she becomes their best customer. One day they inform her, that they are suddenly moving away and give her a gift of their sourdough starter since she has loved eating their food so much. They tell her to take care of it, learn to bake with it and to play it music to keep it happy. 

And... the story gets odder from there, but in a good way. It's fanciful, fantastical, farcical, and a quirky mix of oddball characters, technology, and the ancient art of baking bread for meaning and sustenance. Get your fill of inside foodie jokes (the urban scale Panettone is one example) and nerdy humor when you learn the story of how the mysterious Masque people (ancient keepers of the sourdough starter) became pirates..."For while other pirate crews were sick from moldy rations, the Masque pirates were strong from rations made of mold".

This book has an unusual and entertaining plot, it's a clean read, a quick read, great for travel or the beach and many parts are laugh out loud funny. Ancient world meet modern world, where a robot arm is programmed to stir the dough and the bread oven and sourdough starter are characters in their own right.

You may yearn to bake after reading this book. You will definitely want to sink your teeth into a butter slathered slice of fresh sourdough bread while reading it.