Description: "Delicious fun . . . a novel as delectable as its namesake." --Elizabeth Hand, The Washington Post "A culinary delight . . . Sourdough is the story we all secretly dream about. Could we leave our mundane lives and take a leap of faith in the direction of our newfound passion? Sloan takes readers on a thought-provoking journey to answer that question and asks them to consider the irony that it takes a living concoction of yeast and microbes to force Lois to consider living her best life." --Lincee Ray, The Associated Press "[ Sourdough ] plunges through so much terrain: microbial nations, assimilation and tradition, embodied consciousness and the crisis of the tech industry, all without losing the light, sweet, ironic Sloanian voice familiar from Mr. Penumbra''s , a plot that makes the book a page-turner and a laugh-out-louder, with sweetness and romance and tartness and irony in perfect balance. What a great book, seriously." --Cory Doctorow, Boing Boing "Sloan''s prose is sharp, and his critiques of capitalism, Silicon Valley and foodie culture are finely cut." --Everdeen Mason, The Washington Post "Fascinating . . . insightful . . . One of the more cogent novels this year on the fertile tensions that exist between culture and technology" --Andy Newman, The Atlantic "If you''ve ever been confused about what''s artificial and what''s authentic--can you really tell anymore?-- Sourdough is a book for you." --Jeffery Gleaves, The Paris Review Daily " Sourdough rises like a good loaf . . . Beautiful . . . Fight Club meets The Great British Bake Off . . . [ Sourdough ] knows as much about the strange extremes of food as Mr. Penumbra did about the dark latitudes of the book community. [Sloan''s] voice . . . fits so beautifully into the time and place and moment he is writing about." --Jason Sheehan, NPR Books "Baking, foodie culture, and a club made up of women named Lois all figure in this charming story about a coder slogging away at a trendy tech company. When friends give her some sourdough starter and she begins making her own bread, everything changes." -- Entertainment Weekly "Delightful . . . equal measures techie and foodie fodder, a perfect parable for our times." - San Francisco Magazine "As he did in Mr. Penumbra''s 24-Hour Bookstore , Robin Sloan will have readers looking for magic in the mundane." -Nora Horvath, Real Simple "Filled with crisp humor and weird but endearing characters . . . At once a parody of startup culture and a foodie romp . . . [A] delight, perfect for those who like a little magic with their meals." -- Booklist (starred review) " A wild, geeky, flour-dusted ride through the oddball food and techie communities of San Francisco . . . A winning story that--like its namesake bread--carries a satisfying tang." -- Shelf Awareness "[ Sourdough ] fuses the story of worker alienation and embodied consciousness and microbiomes and microbiology with robotics in a beautiful way . . . A Robert Pirsig or Armisted Maupin kind of novel, but it''s about robotic arms and sourdough bread!" --Cory Doctorow of Boing Boing on KDNK Radio "How many novels can boast an obstreperous sourdough starter as a key character? A delightful and heartfelt read." -- Library Journal "Sloan''s comic but smart tone never flags, and Lois is an easy hero to root for." -- Kirkus Reviews "Through narrative and email correspondence, Sloan captures contemporary work environments, current reality, and future trends . . . [Sourdough] offers much to savor." -- Publishers Weekly "Sloan has imagined a funny and curious novel unlike anything else, a perfect combination of self-discovery through all sorts of weird passions. Like truly good sourdough, this namesake is the perfectly tangy, chewy, and airy addition to anyone''s reading list--minus the gluten and calories, of course." --Chika Gujarathi, BookPage "On the crust, Sourdough is a buddy book . . . But slice a little deeper, and you will discover, Sourdough is a novel about work . . . Sloan''s sense of place is palpable, and his prose is dusted with luxurious lines to be savored . . ." --David LaBounty, Dallas Morning News "In his novel Mr. Penumbra''s 24-Hour Bookstore , Sloan unraveled a mystery about a web designer who takes a job in a peculiar all-night Bay area book shop. New technology clashed, then melded, with classic history. Sourdough promises a similar sort of tech and analog mashup, in this case involving the food industry: a software engineer learns to bake bread and uncovers a secret underground market." -- The Miami Herald , Fall Books Preview

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