Scott J. Pearson’s Book Review

An Everyone Culture: Becoming a Deliberately Developmental Organization

By Scott J. Pearson | June 23, 2025June 23, 2025 by Scott J. Pearson

I work with a career development team for researchers at an academic medical center. Developing researchers’ careers is our central role in the enterprise. We do not have a formal structure that this book describes, but an informal culture of synergy and growth is a huge part of what we cultivate. Because of a constantly evolving world, career and professional development can provide an edge for organizations. A culture of growth attracts and retains top…

Software-Technology

Eloquent JavaScript: A Modern Introduction to Programming

By Scott J. Pearson | June 22, 2025June 22, 2025 by Scott J. Pearson

First, let me note this review is for the third edition, and a fourth edition recently came out. The fourth edition covers recent updates to JavaScript (also known as ECMAScript). I would have bought the fourth edition had I realized it when I made the purchase, but recent JavaScript language updates have not been dramatic. After I finished the third edition, I was able to read about them in a few minutes online to supplement…

Writing-Communication

Telling True Stories: A Nonfiction Writers’ Guide

By Scott J. Pearson | June 18, 2025June 18, 2025 by Scott J. Pearson

I’ve struggled with narrative writing since I became aware of the genre while working on my high school newspaper staff. I could handle news articles well enough, and opinion pieces came easily enough. But embedding the nuance of narrative was something I never mastered. Although I retain a personal interest in writing decades later, my career in technology and science veered in different directions. I picked this book up with hopes of getting better at…

Society

The Big Sort: Why the Clustering of Like-Minded America is Tearing Us Apart

By Scott J. Pearson | June 14, 2025June 14, 2025 by Scott J. Pearson

A standard part of contemporary American culture is the division of society into “red” and “blue” components. Whether concerning states, cities, or ways of life, American society has become more polarized. Instead of the regionalism before the Civil War, these separations often have broken down between a rural versus urban dynamic. Some cities are even considered “red” havens. Bill Bishop first made these observations about 20 years ago, and this book culminated to define the…

Fiction-Stories

This is Happiness: A Novel

By Scott J. Pearson | June 9, 2025June 10, 2025 by Scott J. Pearson

Noe, short for Noel, is a teenage orphan who recently moved from Dublin to live with his grandparents in a small Irish town. Just prior, he enrolled in a seminary with the thought of seeking a priestly calling, but dropped out. Instead, he is now trying to find direction in life. Suddenly, in his small community of Faha, it stops raining, and the sun comes out. The sun never stays out in this rainy realm…

Indie Software-Technology

Advanced JavaScript Unleashed: Master Advanced JavaScript Concepts like Prototypes, Symbols, Generators & More

By Scott J. Pearson | June 4, 2025June 4, 2025 by Scott J. Pearson

Like many web developers, I learned about modern JavaScript/ECMAScript soon after it came out in 2015. JavaScript is the programming language that has powered interactive webpages since Netscape Navigator was a thing. Now, it’s the world’s most used programming language for all sorts of non-browser-based applications, including mobile apps, web servers, and full-stack development. Therefore, understanding how it works and why it works becomes a priority for most software engineers. Grasping the implementation details can…

Society

My Own Words by Ruth Bader Ginsburg

By Scott J. Pearson | June 1, 2025June 2, 2025 by Scott J. Pearson

When a boy, I grew up a Republican in the conservative upstate of South Carolina. I knew about feminism from the news and school, but the history of struggle was not a central part of my household. In 1993, I heard of Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s appointment to the Supreme Court by Bill Clinton, but she was not on my “team.” Therefore, I didn’t pay close attention. Only as an adult did my awareness and curiosity…

Fiction-Stories

Abscond: A Short Story

By Scott J. Pearson | June 1, 2025June 1, 2025 by Scott J. Pearson

Rami Ramanathan is a New Jersey teenager passionate about being the top-ranked tennis player in his age group. He is the only child of his surgeon-father and his stay-at-home mother. Suddenly, his family encounters grief, an emotion that Rami has not previously encountered, at least in as much depth, and that he has not seen his mother encounter. Death’s visit makes him grow up and see the world more clearly – as it is, not…

Religion-Philosophy Science Society

Science, Faith & Society: A Searching Examination of the Meaning & Nature of Scientific Inquiry

By Scott J. Pearson | May 28, 2025May 28, 2025 by Scott J. Pearson

In this book, philosopher of science and eminent chemist Michael Polanyi warns, scientific inquiry cannot exist without a society and a culture that supports it. That is, science’s light can be extinguished if society decides to stamp it out. The freedom to learn about nature requires not only economic supports but also cultural supports. Writing just after the conclusion of World War II, he argues that scientific progress in Europe needs the foundation of a…

Healthcare History HIV/AIDS

How to Survive a Plague: The Story of How Activists & Scientists Tamed AIDS

By Scott J. Pearson | May 25, 2025May 25, 2025 by Scott J. Pearson

Today, it’s easy to forget the days when an HIV diagnosis implied a death sentence within 24 months. Randy Shilts’ And the Band Played On tells the story of how the AIDS pandemic played out in the epicenter of San Francisco, and David France, in this book, tells how it played out in the other American epicenter of New York City. He tells how activists and scientists sometimes fought and sometimes collaborated to find how…