Scott J. Pearson’s Book Review

Transforming Project Management

By Scott J. Pearson | May 29, 2022July 28, 2024 by Scott J. Pearson

The field of project management is receiving amplified attention in recent years. Companies simply need people with skills that can transform action items of strategic planning into reality. The Project Management Institute (PMI) has even begun as a way to provide consistent education and certification. The author holds a Project Management Professional Certification (PMP) and concisely relates how those principles should inform more businesses’ practices. Project management comes down to achieving agreed-upon results on time…

Mentors: How to Help & Be Helped

By Scott J. Pearson | May 23, 2022July 24, 2022 by Scott J. Pearson

The well-known Russell Brand advocates for mental health in the United Kingdom. He has been open about his recovery from numerous addictions in his best-selling memoir Recovery. He follows up that book with this look at mentoring, which helped him out of his hard spot. He is not focused as much on professional or career mentoring, but instead personal and life development. By remembering healthy relationships he’s had in the past, he teaches how to…

Healthcare Society

Hot Spot: A Doctor’s Diary from the Pandemic

By Scott J. Pearson | May 15, 2022May 15, 2022 by Scott J. Pearson

The pandemic era provided the world many types of stories that have not been seen in generations, at least since the Spanish Flu Pandemic of 1918. Healthcare workers and governmental leaders had the most stress refracted their way. Jahangir, a colleague and trauma surgeon at Vanderbilt Medical Center and chair of the board of health in Metro Nashville, served in both roles. What was naively thought to last perhaps only weeks or even a few…

Biography-Memoir

The Community: A Memoir

By Scott J. Pearson | May 13, 2022May 13, 2022 by Scott J. Pearson

A few contemporary threads weave this memoir together: an Islamic Community in New York City whose leader ended up going to prison for child abuse, the never ending stresses of a de-centered family, and being a Muslim in New York City during 9/11. Chisholm begins her narrative explaining youthful dreams of a roomful of people speaking in Arabic. The thing was that she never experienced anything like this and she didn’t know Arabic. Her mom…

Biography-Memoir History

Destiny & Power: The American Odyssey of George Herbert Walker Bush

By Scott J. Pearson | May 12, 2022May 12, 2022 by Scott J. Pearson

To many, he’s the hero behind the first Gulf War. To some, he’s the one who let the US economy slow. To others, he guided the world from the Cold War into a more stable future. To others, he fell short of Reagan’s ideals. Like any impactful president, he consisted of many things to many people. Along with John Adams, he remains one of two presidents ever to have their sons someday succeed them. Meacham,…

Fiction-Stories

The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck

By Scott J. Pearson | May 9, 2022May 9, 2022 by Scott J. Pearson

I was supposed to read this classic as a senior in high school. Instead, I read the Cliff’s Notes version. Knowing what I know now, I would have read this book on its own. It stands as one of the greatest pieces of fiction in the English language, certainly one of the greatest pieces set in America. Steinbeck rightfully won a Pulitzer Prize for it, and eighty years later, it evokes deep feelings of human…

Psychology

Aspire Higher: How to Find the Love, Positivity, & Purpose to Elevate Your Life & the World!

By Scott J. Pearson | April 30, 2022May 2, 2022 by Scott J. Pearson

Self-help books, at their best, empower readers to become a better version of their self. In other words, they can raise readers’ self-esteem. This book – written by a Harvard-educated athlete turned lawyer turned career coach – aspires to do just that. He helps readers identify their “heart-of-hearts” and then to act out of it. He does so while remaining religiously and politically neutrally. Lindner uses positivity as a method to bring forth one’s true…

Healthcare HIV/AIDS Psychology Society

My Nerves are Bad: Puerto Rican Women Managing Mental Illness & HIV Risk

By Scott J. Pearson | April 27, 2022May 7, 2022 by Scott J. Pearson

This sociological work examines a niche group with a lot of social factors going on that impacts their health. First, there is gender as these are women. Regionally and racially, these women are from Puerto Rico but now live in the mainland US. They are impoverished, like many who come from the island. They have to deal with very real health issues like mental illnesses and the looming risk of HIV. They have risk factors,…

Presentation Software-Technology

Type on Screen: A Critical Guide for Designers, Writers, Developers, & Students

By Scott J. Pearson | April 24, 2022April 24, 2022 by Scott J. Pearson

Since Gutenberg, fonts have spent a lot of effort at perfecting how words appears on print. However, in the last several decades, screens have taken over. Thus, there has been a subtle shift in paradigms. For example, humans read text on screens typically further away than print; thus, designs for screens need to have a larger font size. To explore these nuances, Lupton (an established expert in typography) and her students at the Maryland Institute…