I have tried many times to read the book since It was given to me for my 12th birthday but I always get caught up reading the indices and glossary and never actually make it very far in to the actual novel.
I think the closest I've come is Pastwatch by Orson Scott Card which is more a time travel story but it explores some of what you want but trying toeliminate slavery much earlier in the timeline. but it's Card so there is his heavy religious hand in it.
He may have been a real sign language interpreter but whoever hired him may not have realized there as many sign languages as there are spoken languages and hired him to sign the wrong dialect.
Green bean casserole is quite palatable if you don't use canned beans. Use fresh or frozen cut beans that way the beans are not reduced to mush and use 1 1/2 times as much green beans as the recipe calls for so that the beans are not swimming in mushroom soup but just have a light coating.
when one commissions a portrait one expects *some* facial realism, not the blobby mess Kluge has produced. I don't mind the collage style but it is poorly composed.
Stop trying to make Google+ Happen, Gretchen.