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Love that it opens with a promise of giving you thinking tools and doesn't not promise to make you a "super productive rockstar millionaire astronaut".

Extremely evocative of an innocent, simpler time. Our guide and bearer of news from the world after the civil war, Jefferson Kidd, is a wise, brave, grumpy grandfather and widower. The diverse characters that come in and out of his life are intriguingly rendered by Jiles, to the point that she must satisfy the reader's curiosity, explaining the fate of them all in detail. And Kidd's sidekick, Johanna, is rendered in such detail that her internal, unspoken struggle brought me to tears as I read out loud to my parents. My mother and father had to repeatedly take over for me when I got choked up. And the intellectual linguist in you will delight at the intricate explanations of the Kiowa language and culture, not to mention the now arcane language of preindustrial Texas and the southeastern US. Normally this would be a 5-star for me. The only detractor is the relatively basic and cliche writing of the first few chapters, as Jiles sucks in the average reader, before unleashing the spoils of her research on the persistent reader in the later chapters. She does eventually unleash her deeper creativity and illuminates the human condition without cliche or boring soundbites. Hang in there. The journey is worth the knocks of the bumpy road at the start.

Probably the most mind-blowing book I've read this year. Difficult to untangle, but riveting and suspenseful. I hope Watts continues this thought experiment on intelligence and consciousness and new ways of thinking about thinking.

Couldn't put it down -- not for any contrived anticipation or urgency, rather Greenwood's sincerity and bravery. I read with excitement and nervousness, enthralled by the crafting of something lasting, inspired -- piece by beautiful piece.

As intricate and well-crafted as Helprin's Soldier of the Great War, or Sunlight and Shaddow, only more enthralling and accessible. Loved the skipping around in time and place, fullfilling the thesis that mind and spirit aren't restricted to the linear progression of time and can fly through the air like birds or radio waves.