Rating: 
Summary: Not for the novice
Review: La Brea Bakery produces an amazing product that I hoped to duplicate (or at least make an attempt) at home. Although I feel very comfortable in the kitchen, I was very intimiated by her lengthy home made starter instructions and thus her book has sat on my shelf unused. Unless you are willing to make the costly and time consuming starter, this book is of no value.
Rating: 
Summary: Sourdough Bread Master Class
Review: Like Diogenes, you have been searching the four corners of the world for a book that will tell you how to make real sourdough bread at home. Well, set down your lantern and rest your weary bones, because you have finally found it. Nancy Silverton became famous for the sourdough bread that she makes at her bakery, and this book will tell you in excruciating detail how she does it.
Few things are as wonderful as good sourdough, and few things are as elusive as sourdough recipes in bread books. Few will even acknowledge the presence of sourdough; fewer still will mention words like levain, chef, starter, or poolish. The number of baking books that will give you real recipes for them can be counted on one hand.
This book is a complete tutorial on sourdough bread from start to finish. The first recipe in the book for a basic white bread takes an astonishing 30 pages: 10 to tell you how to make your own starter, and another 20 to tell you how to make the dough and bake it. The author is a stickler for detail; the thoroughness in the recipes can be irritating. It also means that your chances of success are very high; all of the breads I tried worked perfectly, even the more difficult ones based on rye. Each recipe has a rather long (and very complete) list of equipment that you will need (including, in one case, a room thermometer). No longer is sourdough dependent on random chance, magic, or even experience.
Be warned, however, that sourdough is not easy to do. You will end up throwing away a "swimming pool" of dough in order to refresh the starter. Some of the fermentation steps are 12 hours long. Some breads have to be refrigerated overnight, so you will need room in your refrigerator for several bannetons and/or sheet pans.
There are also some surprising gaps. During kneading steps, there are not always clear instructions on how to tell when you are done; this is especially true of the slack doughs that she expects you to do in a machine rather than by hand. All you get is an instruction to knead for a certain number of minutes. The baking instructions are not always helpful in telling you when the bread is baked enough; all you get is a vague description and a certain number of minutes to bake. Sometimes she tells you what color to look for. Other times, she gives you a description of what the inside of the bread should look like, but this is of no help if you have the oven door open and are wondering if the bread is done baking.
The title of the book is also a problem. It is not obvious from the title (unless you have actually been to her bakery) that the book has sourdough recipes almost exclusively. Conversely, the unwary buyer might pick up this book expecting an all around collection of boulangerie recipes.
Of special merit is the final chapter with recipes using the starter you would normally just toss out. This is the only book I know of that will tell you what to do with this excess starter when you are not going to be making bread. There are recipes like onion rings and pancakes that work quite well.
Rating:
Summary: The Science of Breadmaking
Review: My wife introduced me to La Brea breads here in the LA area and
I have been trying, for some time, to reproduce those breads at
home...this book is part bread recipes and part science textbook.
Many people may be put off by the 15 days from beginning a
sourdough starter to baking the first loaf of bread, but the
results and the whole host of "cause and effect" tidbits about
making great bread are worth the effort...this book is excellent,
if you are dedicated to making the very best bread possible...
Rating:
Summary: From the cradle to the breadbox
Review: One thing I can say about this book is that it is compelling. It's not for the faint of heart either! It kept me enthralled enough to grow my very own starter (which turned out fantastic despite the painstaking measures required) and to pursue the elusive "perfect loaf". I'm getting closer with each try and I can honestly say, my bread is nearing in quality that of the other notable San Francisco artisan bakeries - all thanks to Nancy for writing such a wonderful text on her tested techniques and the science of sourdough.
Rating: 
Summary: Not for the Novice but Excellent for serious bakers
Review: Since I purchased a bread machine that is completely programmable I began experimenting with Sourdough Breads. My experiments were a mixed success. This book has given me a wealth of information of the bread making process and using sourdough. It has helped me troubleshoot and diagnose my experiments. It is NOT for the faint at heart baker, but if you're serious about sourdough, this is THE book to own!
Rating:
Summary: You don't have to be in the trade!
Review: The homebaker can shop for the same flours which are available to the trade, in order to bake artesian breads, and get them in small amounts, altho' it seems to have been a well kept secret not listed in the Sources section of the baking books.
To me, it was like a miracle to find heartlandmill.com. They are a small farm in Marienthal, Kansas and will ship the grains or special baker's flours in whatever small amounts the home baker wishes to order. Their prices don't have a lot of overhead built in and to top it off their products are organic! It is a joy to shop from them.
To get the special flours is no big deal, you don't have to be in the trade!
You can do the recipes in all the fabulous books on artesian baking: Artesian Baking by Maggie Glezer, Crust and Crumb and The Baker's Apprentice by Peter Reinhart, Nancy Silverton's Breads from the LaBrea Bakery, Bread Alone by Daniel Leader,..... without struggling or compromising.
Rating:
Summary: All roads lead to sourdough
Review: There's as many different ways to make sourdough bread as there are bakers in this world. I have read *lots* of books on baking, and while I believe while her intentions are good and her methods sound, Nancy is very much over-complicating a very simple thing. An example is, it is very easy to establish a vibrant starter within 5 days and be baking with it on that 5th day. Her method takes 2 weeks. Not saying it's wrong, I'm sure it works wonderfully, but all of us aren't professional bakers, and don't feel like waiting 2 weeks to bake. And hey, who wants to feed their starter 3 squares a day, at 3 cups of flour per day??? Maybe if you mill your own flour.... I've sucessfully maintained a healthy wonderful starter on 1 feeding a week for a long time now. Also, another thing that put me off a little bit was that she really neglects recipes using yeasted doughs, making it seem like everything has to be sourdough. She obviously hasn't tried pain a'l'ancienne, from Peter Reinhart's Bread Baker's Apprentice book. What a wonderful bread that is so easy to make! All in all, it's an interesting read, but just another bread book in my opinion. Don't expect to get into her methods unless you're a stay-at-home baker, or as the title suggests, a connoisseur. :)
Rating:
Summary: Catch and feed your own virtual pet...
Review: This book allowed me to catch wild yeast on my very first try. That, the basic white bread, whole wheat walnut, and the pumpernickel recipes are worth the price of the book. Silverton is very specific about the instructions, which are helpful for starting, and especially for catching the yeast, but are a little obsessive and impractical unless you are baking semi-commercially. It is not hard to adjust the feeding schedule to your schedule, and the bread is very forgiving, unlike bread made from commercial yeast. That said, use unwashed organic grapes and unclorinated water for the starter; and after it is established, refrigerate the starter for a week between feeding before bread making. I have given starter to friends and relatives, and now they won't make bread any other way... I think that speaks volumes for the value of the book. (and p.s., you don't have to use rye or whole wheat starters for the walnut or pumpernickel loaves...)
Rating:
Summary: Phenomenal book for the obsessed
Review: This book is an unbelievable text for the already experienced bread baker who wants to take his/her skills to another level. Ms. Silverton is arguably the country's greatest baker, and it is her obsession with baking the perfect loaf of bread that permeates this text (note the 20+ pages of instructions for the first loaf in the book). She has spent an exhausting amount of time working out the minute details of each recipe, right down to the exact temperature of the ingredients, in order to create beautiful and flavorful loaves. As a result, this book is definitely not for the beginner, nor is it for the quick baker looking for some easy recipes to make in a few hours. The quickest bread in this book takes two days to make, and many breads require three days. If you are obsessed with baking (as am I) and want to elevate your skills tremendously, then definitely buy this beautiful and easy-to-read book. If you're a beginner baker or someone just looking for some quick recipes for dinner, don't purchase this paean to the perfect loaf.
Rating:
Summary: The best book ever, but not for the meek (weak)
Review: This book is for accomplished home bread makers that want to make professional quality bread, and there is only one way to do that: sourdough. I have made 15 different breads from this book, including pure sourdoughs, mixed starter breads, levains, and ryes. And every single recipe works! There are lots of books out there that will satisfy most people's desire for breadmaking skills. Nancy's book is one of the few for the true "breadies."
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