Tuesday, August 29, 2017

Meg's Picks: September 2017, part 2

I've saved the best for last!

Caroline: Little House, Revisited, by Sarah Miller. In a new novel authorized by the Little House Heritage Trust, Sarah Miller brings to life one of the most beloved characters from Laura Ingalls Wilder's series, Caroline "Ma" Ingalls, as never seen before. In February 1870, the Ingalls family packs up, leaving Big Woods, Wisconsin behind for a new life in the Kansas Indian Territory. The pioneer life is a hard one without the benefit of friends or kin nearby, the work shouldered alone, illness managed without aid of doctors, babies birthed without mothers and sisters to assist. And yet their new life is also full of the tender joys of family and of turning their new cabin into a home. A cherished tale for decades now retold for an adult audience, I think this will be a new favorite for those looking to feel again the magic of the original tale.

Sourdough, by Robin Sloan. Sloan's debut novel, 2012's Mr. Penumbra's 24-Hour Bookstore, has been a favorite of bibliophiles everywhere. Here, she does for food what her debut did for the world of books. A software engineer in San Francisco is dedicated to her job at a cutting-edge robotics firm: she codes all day, only to come home and collapse each evening. Her most meaningful human contact is with the two brothers who run the neighborhood hole-in-the-wall where she gets her dinner every night. Until disaster strikes, the brothers close up shop and make one last delivery to Lois: their sourdough starter, complete with care and feeding instructions. Soon she's feeding everyone she knows with her homemade bread, providing it to the cafeteria at work, and when she seeks to take her product to the local farmers market, she finally meets resistance. But why? And who is this secret, underground marketplace that would bring her in instead? Sloan's work is absolutely, delightfully unique and I can't wait to read this latest work.

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