Scott J. Pearson’s Book Review

Agentic Artificial Intelligence: Harnessing AI Agents to Reinvent Business, Work & Life

By Scott J. Pearson | September 7, 2026September 7, 2026 by Scott J. Pearson

Artificial Intelligence (AI) continues to evolve quickly, perhaps too quickly for all of us to keep up. One of the current innovations is agentic AI, which can accomplish specific tasks for you with minimal programming or coding. Pascal Bornet and his vast team shows us how these innovations can help our lives and our work. Why did I pick up this book? I kept hearing the words “agentic AI” without really having a strong grasp…

Beholden: Religion, Global Health & Human Rights

By Scott J. Pearson | September 6, 2026September 6, 2026 by Scott J. Pearson

Interactions between culture and religion are fraught with difficulties. Some want to do away with religion altogether. Others welcome religious influences on policy and practice. One thing’s for sure, though: There are always points of both friction and synergy between the two groups. Susan Holman, a scholar in the Christian tradition, examines these interactions in six distinct articles. In so doing, she examines the roots and nature of human rights and the religious value of…

Biography-Memoir Healthcare Science

My Stroke of Insight: A Brain Scientist’s Personal Journey

By Scott J. Pearson | September 5, 2026September 5, 2026 by Scott J. Pearson

What is it like to go through a stroke? Additionally, what’s it like to observe your own stroke if you’re an elite brain scientist? Those two storylines are what Jill Bolte Taylor offers in this short memoir. For those not yet exposed to the internals of how the brain works, it offers an accessible tutorial. Many readers are not accustomed to understanding how different regions of the brain function together to provide a coherent experience…

Mentoring Research-Education

Mentorship: Empowering Mentees to Take the Lead & Co-Create Their Development

By Scott J. Pearson | August 28, 2026August 28, 2026 by Scott J. Pearson

This book is frankly mis-titled. It’s not addressed to mentors but to mentees. It’s a guide to mentees on how to guide their own development in a mentoring relationship. Despite the mis-titling, it’s really good. And in support of the title, the only way to become a great mentor is to become a great mentee – that is, a great learner of how to succeed at your position. So in a sense, it’s written to…

Healthcare Religion-Philosophy Society

Religion, Spirituality & Public Health: Competing & Complementary Epistemes

By Scott J. Pearson | August 22, 2026August 22, 2026 by Scott J. Pearson

In the COVID-19 pandemic, resistance to modern biomedicine (evidence-based medicine) occurred in droves and presented real problems to public health implementers trying to get us out of infections. Now that the pandemic is over, it’s worth spending time reflecting on how to better handle similar approaches in the future. This volume, from the British Academy, offers such an approach. Its vision is global in scope, not just localized to the British isles. So what’s an…

Fiction-Stories

Transcription: A Novel

By Scott J. Pearson | August 16, 2026August 16, 2026 by Scott J. Pearson

I picked this book up from Barack Obama’s summer reading list. Whatever you think of his politics, he has a refined taste in books, and he’s never led me to a bad place in his book choices. This work is no different. Ben Lerner guides us along for a shorter story – almost a novella – that unwraps creatively as we go along. Though readers’ curiosities are engaged from the start, the main theme isn’t…

Economics History

1929: Inside the Greatest Crash in Wall Street History – and How it Shattered a Nation

By Scott J. Pearson | August 13, 2026August 13, 2026 by Scott J. Pearson

The Wall Street Crash of 1929 is legendary, but I’ve read relatively few accounts of its detailed history. For many people, I suppose, it’s like doing a deep dive about your favorite sports team’s worst loss. That’s unfortunate, though, because history offers many lessons. Andrew Ross Sorkin’s book offers a personal view of the crash – not in the sense that the author saw it himself but in the sense that he unpacks the motives,…

Healthcare Research-Education Science

Practical Implementation Science: Moving Evidence into Action

By Scott J. Pearson | August 9, 2026August 9, 2026 by Scott J. Pearson

With the Internet, the world has become glut with information, and the domain of scientific knowledge is no exception. The challenge, however, has become implementing that knowledge into healthcare practice. Papers are published, read a few times, cited by other authors, and often die in scientific journals. Those journals are great, but the pipeline to practice (the clinic and patient lives) needs to open up more. Translational science and implementation science aim to do just…

Biography-Memoir Leadership

A Journey of Insights: Lessons in Leadership & Legacy

By Scott J. Pearson | August 9, 2026August 9, 2026 by Scott J. Pearson

Sage advice is hard to come by – you know, the kind of advice that makes you change the way you look at the world and in turn act better in the world. We often look to experienced leaders and educators to point the way. James Ellis, the former Dean of the Marshall School of Business at the University of Southern California, served students for over two decades as professor and leader. Before that, he…