From Robin Sloan, the New York Times bestselling author of Mr. Penumbra’s 24-Hour Bookstore, comes Sourdough, "a perfect parable for our times" (San Francisco Magazine): a delicious and funny novel about an overworked and under-socialized software engineer discovering a calling and a community as a baker. Named One of the Best Books of the Year by NPR, the San Francisco Chronicle, and Southern Living 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 quickly close up shop. 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 to the General Dexterity cafeteria every day. Then the company chef urges her to take her product to the farmer’s market—and a whole new world opens up.

Songs of a Sourdough by Robert Service, defined a place and time like only a truly great poet can. Set in the Yukon during the great Klondike gold rush, this collection of poems is full of the wild characters, the freezing snow storms and the vast staggering beauty Artic wilderness. Many of the earliest books, particularly those dating back to the 1900s and before, are now extremely scarce and increasingly expensive. Hesperides Press are republishing these classic works in affordable, high quality, modern editions, using the original text and artwork.

Here, collected in a single volume, are the most popular verses of the great English-born Canadian poet. His famous ballads of the Klondike are here: “The Shooting of Dan McGrew,” “The Spell of the Yukon,” and “The Cremation of Sam McGee.” Also included are unforgettable portrayals of the artists, grisettes, and models of the merry, tragic life of bohemian Paris, and other verses inspire by the First World War, during which Service drove an ambulance in France. And not to be overlooked are the many expressions of the poet’s own homespun philosophy—his comments on women, on life and death, ambition, and success and failure, which strike a responsive chord in the reader’s heart. Gaiety, humor, nostalgia, and pathos fill every page, along with the genuine Service ring of virility which has made his verse loved throughout the English reading world.

Cora promises to keep Uncle JB’s Bread Pet alive but didn’t anticipate its exponential growth! She needs to come up with a solution -- and fast! This whimsical STEM story of family, creativity and community will inspire young makers to experiment and share their gifts with others. Includes recipes for sourdough starter and sourdough bread.