Sourdough by Robin Sloan

Title: Sourdough

Author: Robin Sloan

Publisher: MCD 2017

Genre: Fiction

Pages: 272

Rating: 4/5 stars

Reading Challenges: Popsugar - Involving a Heist; I Love Libraries

Lois Clary is a software engineer at General Dexterity, a San Francisco robotics company with world-changing ambitions. She codes all day and collapses at night, her human contact limited to the two brothers who run the neighborhood hole-in-the-wall from which she orders dinner every evening. Then, disaster! Visa issues. The brothers close up shop, and fast. But they have one last delivery for Lois: their culture, the sourdough starter used to bake their bread. She must keep it alive, they tell her—feed it daily, play it music, and learn to bake with it.

Lois is no baker, but she could use a roommate, even if it is a needy colony of microorganisms. Soon, not only is she eating her own homemade bread, she’s providing loaves daily to the General Dexterity cafeteria. The company chef urges her to take her product to the farmer’s market, and a whole new world opens up.

When Lois comes before the jury that decides who sells what at Bay Area markets, she encounters a close-knit club with no appetite for new members. But then, an alternative emerges: a secret market that aims to fuse food and technology. But who are these people, exactly?

Overall, I really enjoyed our book club selection this month. I loved Lois's adventure with the sourdough starter. I loved all the descriptions of the starter and the bread it created. I loved the relationships Lois cultivated at General Dexterity and the Marrow Fair. I even enjoyed hearing about the other residents of the Marrow Fair, especially Horace. What I didn't love was the weird pseudo-corporate espionage that happened in the last 30 pages or so. I didn't like the characters involved and I certainly didn't like the outcome. Plus the way it was written made the ending seem very forced and abrupt. I would have liked a bit more to draw the conflict out. Oh well. At least most of the book was very entertaining.

Next up on the TBR pile:

Mr. Penumbra's 24-Hour Bookstore by Robin Sloan

Title: Mr. Penumbra's 24-Hour Bookstore

Author: Robin Sloan

Publisher: Farrar, Straus, and Giroux 2012

Genre: Fiction

Pages: 305

Rating: 5/5 stars

Reading Challenges: I Love Libraries; Popsugar -- Set in Home State (bit of a cheat, but I'm claiming California as my home state now)

The Great Recession has shuffled Clay Jannon out of his life as a San Francisco Web-design drone—and serendipity, sheer curiosity, and the ability to climb a ladder like a monkey has landed him a new gig working the night shift at Mr. Penumbra's 24-Hour Bookstore. But after just a few days on the job, Clay begins to realize that this store is even more curious than the name suggests. There are only a few customers, but they come in repeatedly and never seem to actually buy anything, instead "checking out" impossibly obscure volumes from strange corners of the store, all according to some elaborate, long-standing arrangement with the gnomic Mr. Penumbra. The store must be a front for something larger, Clay concludes, and soon he's embarked on a complex analysis of the customers' behavior and roped his friends into helping to figure out just what's going on. But once they bring their findings to Mr. Penumbra, it turns out the secrets extend far outside the walls of the bookstore.

One of my book club selections for March. It was recommended by a friends, and I'm so glad we choose it. By the end of the first chapter, I was hooked. A mysterious bookstore in San Francisco? Sounds like the perfect place! As the story progressed, the plot went someone I did not anticipate, but was definitely entertaining. I loved following the twists and turns and attempting to solve the mystery before Clay. While some of the characters were not my favorite (hello Kat), I enjoyed most of them and realize their place in the story. Definitely recommend to all the bibliophiles in my acquaintance.