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Something beautifully multifaceted arising from complex relations, a quantum theorist writes a clear and compact dissolution or eulogy of our understanding of time in artful conversation with ancient poets and thinkers.

You know, I think I first read this right when it came out in 2006 or 7, and I distinctly remember its unreliably-gendered narration being a key point in my enlightenment about gender and identity — I also remember that I was uncomfortable around trans people and unexpected gendered pronouns before this book, and after it (and ANCILLARY JUSTICE) I was much less concerned.

Also, it's a wild bit of Twilight Zone plus Truman Show plus any generic prison break plus a story of revolutionary anarchists plus Memento mind-editing (voluntary and involuntary) and dysphoria (many flavors) and consent (and what it means under all that)

I'm sad that this novel didn't receive wider acclaim, but I'm sorta not surprised, because every single character here is a genocidaire, even the heroes, and it's hard to sit comfortably with that

In my tracking of books reads over on LibraryThing, this is book #1700 that I have read in my all time list.

Check, matriarch and soon-to-be-widow, attempts to keep friends and family safe while living in the Cherokee Nation in 1875.

A fine read, but a little too sprawling and unfocused for my tastes. I found Verble’s “Stealing” a much more intimate and compelling read. Partly because “Cherokee America” isn’t written in first person, but also because its wide-ranging portrayal of a time and place which touches upon many characters and situations lacks the sensitive depiction of a single protagonist I so appreciated in “Stealing”.

new vocabulary: newel

the central supporting pillar of a spiral or winding staircase

Lot's of interesting pop psychology on why people fall for scams. There's lots of techniques that scammers can use to prime people for scams. For example, that most people don't want to be the impolite person who asks hard questions especially in front of others.

As for what we can do about it, most of the sections have a technique or two designed to slow down a person's slide into the scam. However, they're all variations on "be vigilant enough to think about X". For example, "ask yourself why an offer is being made to you." The techniques will work best for someone who is already cranky and vigilant like me, and probably less so without training for others. And I really really wish all these techniques were put together in one section at the end, to provide a coherent overall thinking process.

But it's still pretty interesting.