Sourdough - Robin Sloan

Lois Clary, a software engineer at a San Francisco robotics company, codes all day and collapses at night. When her favourite sandwich shop closes up, the owners leave her with the starter for their mouthwatering sourdough bread.

Lois becomes the unlikely hero tasked to care for it, bake with it and keep this needy colony of microorganisms alive.  Soon she is baking loaves daily and taking them to the farmer's market, where an exclusive close-knit club runs the show. 

When Lois discovers another, more secret market, aiming to fuse food and technology, a whole other world opens up. But who are these people, exactly? 

Paperback, 259 pages
Expected publication: January 4th 2018 by Atlantic Books
Fiction
For review

My thoughts:

I knew this one would be good cos it was a Robin Sloan book. To be fair, I have only read one by him, but I liked his style and he kept that. Page 1 showed me it was the same.

Lois is working, working and then working. That is her entire life. And then she orders soup and bread, and what a feast it is. Trust me, I really want to taste that soup and that bread now.

And then she gets a starter. And now I want one! My very own starter, I mean, how cool wouldn't that be to make, to keep on feeding, to have for my own bread. Though I can't say I know anyone who has ever made one.

Suddenly her life is bread. There is a market place of wonders and a tale told of the yeast starter's history.

It is just the way it is told. SO serious. SO funny. So remarkable. So magical. So normal. He is a great writer and I fall into this world and comes out of wanting a yeast starter of all things.

Conclusion

Great one

Cover

eh

Mr Penumbra's 24-hour bookstore - Robin Sloan

Recession has shuffled Clay Jannon out of his life as a Web-design drone and serendipity coupled with sheer curiosity has landed him a new job working the night shift at Mr. Penumbra's 24-Hour Bookstore. And it doesn't take long for Clay to realize that the quiet, dusty book emporium is even more curious than the name suggests. There are only a few fanatically committed customers, but they never seem to actually buy anything, instead they simply borrow impossibly obscure volumes perched on dangerously high shelves, all according to some elaborate arrangement with the eccentric proprietor. The store must be a front for something larger, Clay concludes, and soon he has plugged in his laptop, roped in his friends (and a cute girl who works for Google) and embarked on a high-tech analysis of the customers' behaviour. What they discover is an ancient secret that can only be solved by modern means, and a global-conspiracy guarded by Mr. Penumbra himself... who has mysteriously disappeared.

My thoughts:

I really enjoyed this book, mostly because how it was written. I do love a well written book, and this one managed to mix humor, tech and the love of books with mystery. I do not like to compare books, but if I would have to, yes a bit of Carlos Ruiz Zafon vibes with the whole something strange afoot. 

For a book lover, this is the book to read. Clay, our hero starts working at a bookstore. Not many people comes by but some of those who do are strange and there is where a mystery is born. Who are they? Why can't he look at the books from the forbidden section? And the mystery grows.

To his help he has a cute google girl, his old fantasy loving friend and of course Mr Penumbra.

The hunt for the truth was good, I liked the use of technology in it, and the whole feeling I got. I love books, I will always love books and yes I need real books too.

Conclusion:

A book lovers dream. Put in a mystery and google, and this is what you get. Well written and excellent.

Cover

eh

Paperback, 304 pages
Published February 27th 2014 by Atlantic Books (first published January 1st 2012)
Mr. Penumbra's 24-Hour Bookstore #1
Fiction
For review

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