Scott J. Pearson

Across the Winding River

By Scott J. Pearson | August 1, 2020August 1, 2020 by Scott J. Pearson

This story is founded historically off of events around the Western European front of World War II. It enticingly employs a technique called “triple narrative” in which the plot is told from three perspectives across varying timelines. Altogether, it mixes together several thematic tales – of love, of the horrors of war, of family, of Jewish and Christian identity, of women overcoming obstacles, and of the power of the individual in authoritarian regimes. Runyan generally…

Software-Technology

Web Security for Developers: Real Threats, Practical Defense

By Scott J. Pearson | July 31, 2020August 3, 2020 by Scott J. Pearson

Much has been and continues to be written on the topic of computer security, but a lot of that content is directed towards computer security professionals. Few resources exist that are written for software developers, by developers. In this work, McDonald seeks to answer the need for a comprehensive exposition on this topic. In this attempt, he succeeds in providing a clear and thorough introduction of what developers need to know about security. The biggest…

Fiction-Stories

The Castle by Franz Kafka

By Scott J. Pearson | July 27, 2020August 13, 2023 by Scott J. Pearson

Franz Kafka lived in Germany in the end of the 19th and the beginning of the 20th centuries He is most well-known for his work The Metamorphosis, in which the protagonist grotesquely wakes up one day as a giant cockroach. The work of this review (The Castle) was started and left unfinished in 1922, two years before Kafka’s death in 1924. It was only published posthumously in 1926 – against Kafka’s expressed wishes in his…

Management-Business Research-Education

Managing the Research University by Dean O. Smith

By Scott J. Pearson | July 23, 2020July 23, 2020 by Scott J. Pearson

In traditional Oxford University Press fashion, this book communicates an “all you need to know” about being a Chief Research Officer at a research university. It attempts to catalogue the disparate parts of administering research. Much of the knowledge and wisdom in this field is broken up into different segments – like legal, administrative/management, marketing, and laboratory. This book attempts to bring all of this information into one place based off of sweat-earned experience. Research…

Fiction-Stories Humanities

I Am Not Your Enemy: Stories to Transform a Divided World

By Scott J. Pearson | July 20, 2020July 20, 2020 by Scott J. Pearson

I read this book as a part of a book study led by McRay (the author himself). These stories, mostly from Israel-Palestine but also from Northern Ireland and South Africa, chronicle the difficulties we humans have in securing peace among each other. They tell of how each side of really difficult conflicts can come to live peacefully and non-violently with the other. McRay is not the subject here. Rather, he is the interviewer. He has…

Cybersecurity Management-Business Software-Technology

Cybersecurity: Insights You Need from Harvard Business Review

By Scott J. Pearson | July 16, 2020November 23, 2024 by Scott J. Pearson

As an IT professional, I do not reside in the intended audience of this book. It is geared towards business leaders, not software developers. It provides a high-level and non-technical overview of the field of cybersecurity. Through several authors, it makes the case that cybersecurity cannot be overlooked by all C-suite executives, even in non-technology-based companies. That case is underscored by the direct impact cybersecurity has on a business’ bottom line. Having in-depth technical experience…

Biography-Memoir

The Son and Heir: A Memoir

By Scott J. Pearson | July 12, 2020August 13, 2023 by Scott J. Pearson

The author, an award-winning Dutch journalist with professional expertise on Russia, writes his family history that is well-grounded in the European experience. This family of riches and complexities has ties to Latvia, Germany, the Netherlands, and Belgium. Like most memoirs, this work can be seen as the author making sense of his own complex life here. Münginghoff died in April of 2020, shortly before this translation was published. Overall, this is a tragic story, not…

Fiction-Stories

The Night Watchman: A Novel

By Scott J. Pearson | July 6, 2020July 6, 2020 by Scott J. Pearson

Set in the 1950s, this story resides in the literary area of fictionalized memoir (though written about a family member’s experiences) or historical fiction. Erdrich writes about the struggle of a Native American tribe (the Chippewas) to retain the land on their reservation. This land was deeded to them in perpetuity by the United States government. However, U.S. Congress sought to disregard (discard?) these treaties and to take over autonomous land. The fight to overcome…

Books

What I’m Reading in July 2020

By Scott J. Pearson | July 3, 2020July 3, 2020 by Scott J. Pearson

This month, I’m going to highlight a few of the books that I’ve been specifically asked to review. I get these books ahead of release or with a request to promote. So I download them, read them, and review them. This process is a lot easier now that we have the Internet. One does not have to physically mail a book in order to send it to a reviewer. Thus, procuring a book review is…

Humanities Psychology

Recovery’s Edge: An Ethnography of Mental Health Care and Moral Agency

By Scott J. Pearson | June 29, 2020June 29, 2020 by Scott J. Pearson

The American mental health system is one without much hope, without much money, and without much publicity. In this academic exploration, Myers seeks to bring a clear lens of careful observation to the situation. Often, exposure to the system makes observers disillusioned and hopeless. To that narrative, she provides a counter-narrative based on first-hand experience and research. All in all, she succeeds in her attempt. She spends an extended period of time investigating mental health…