Book Discussion: Sourdough by Robin Sloan

The March 2020 installment of the BKLYN Discussions series will be a crossover event in conjunction with the Central Library Cookbook Club. Both clubs will discuss the same title at the same time and we invite all participants to join together and visit any one of three separate sessions offered (3/12, 3/17 and 3/19). For this momentous occurence of literary confluence, we selected Sourdough, a novel by Robin Sloan.

And befitting this crossover, this novel is food-related. It features a possibly-sentient sourdough starter as a key supporting character--perhaps the first novel in the English language to hold that distinction--and follows the misadventures of Lois Clary, a talented young programmer from Michigan who follows a job to California, only to be drawn into the weird world of food that waits there. And why does she leave friends, family and the comforts of home behind for a life of high rents and work obsession? "Here's a thing I believe about people my age," she says, "we are the children of Hogwarts, and more than anything, we just want to be sorted."

A beautiful, sweet and small novel about work and eating, robots and microbes, independence and ambition, that somehow manages to keep its sweetness while simultaneously skewering the excesses of SF's tech industry and food culture alike, offering deft insights the forces shaping our world along the way.

Reserve your copy soon in book, ebook or e-audiobook form, or contact me directly for more options (ebobilin@bklynlibrary.org). A limited number of copies will be available on display in the Languages and Literature division.

As always, if you are interested in hearing more information about the BKLYN Discussions series, add your address to the email list to receive two emails a month (pre- and post-discussion).