Scott J. Pearson’s Book Review

The Emotional Craft of Fiction: How to Write the Story Beneath the Surface

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

Writing fiction is a difficult art. Writing fiction that sells and impacts is even more difficult. Literary agent Donald Maass seeks to educate writers how to write meaningful fiction with meaningful characters. The key, he says, is to develop characters’ emotional layer so that they become more dynamic. Thus, readers identify with characters and want to spend time in your book. The key to developing characters is, as an author, to develop one’s own emotional…

Software-Technology

The Essence of Software: Why Concepts Matter for Great Design

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

In today’s software design, much focus hones in on users’ experience with the interface. Teams make large efforts to make that experience as pleasing as possible so as not to drive away customers. However, they don’t place as much emphasis on the conceptual nature of software – what concepts users extract from the software and what concepts the software requires for effective use. Since the advent of the GUI, today’s software conveys intellectual matter that…

JWT Handbook

By Scott J. Pearson | July 24, 2025July 24, 2025 by Scott J. Pearson

For those unaware (like me earlier this week), JWT stands for JSON Web Token. JSONs are a standard formats computers on the Internet exchange data in. JWTs are a standardized way to pass encrypted information from a client to a server to prevent tampering. To provide security, it uses modern encryption tools along with a signature and information stored in the header of a web transaction. Thus, web users cannot tamper with information for malicious…

Artificial Intelligence Indie

Computational Linguistics & Artificial Intelligence

By Scott J. Pearson | July 19, 2025November 8, 2025 by Scott J. Pearson

I work in software applications in biomedical research. Artificial intelligence (AI) is a natural interest impacting my work and team. I’m always looking for thoughtful explorations of the topic. I stumbled upon this book on Amazon and thought I’d give the audiobook a try. I’m glad I did. Though Daniel Dinkelman’s work is far from perfect, it provided a helpful survey of the research landscape across the landscape in computational linguistics and AI. It concisely…

Healthcare HIV/AIDS Religion-Philosophy

Women, HIV & the Church: In Search of Refuge

By Scott J. Pearson | July 19, 2025July 19, 2025 by Scott J. Pearson

First, I want to acknowledge the nobility of this book’s purpose. HIV is a dehumanizing condition that only worsens with stigma. Today, both women and orphans are disproportionately affected, and both groups have traditionally been objects of the church’s compassion. However, such a compassionate orientation hasn’t been the case with HIV; instead, stigma reigns, especially in countries hardest hit by the epidemic. This book represents a direct call for the church to instead reclaim its…

Fiction-Stories Writing-Communication

The Science of Storytelling: Why Stories Make Us Human & How to Tell Them Better

By Scott J. Pearson | July 13, 2025July 13, 2025 by Scott J. Pearson

When inventing plays, the ancient Greeks noticed stories often healed audiences of their psychological ills. Stories remain some of the first historic signs of civilizations the world over. Even today, weekends for many often consist of movies and/or fiction. What fascinates us so about them? Will Storr takes a gambit to explain this deeply human topic. He wants us to understand stories – and ourselves – better so that we can tell the next tale…

Healthcare

Overcoming Metabolic Syndrome

By Scott J. Pearson | July 13, 2025July 13, 2025 by Scott J. Pearson

Metabolic syndrome is a growing problem, particularly in America with widespread obesity. This book was published in 2006 and updated in 2009, but the problem has become worse, not better, since then. What is it? Metabolic syndrome is loosely defined as a bunch of symptoms that can worsen together, including high cholesterol, high blood pressure, diabetes, obesity, a fatty liver, and cardiovascular problems. None of these conditions by themselves are good, but together, they can…

Healthcare Psychology Science

Second & Third Generation Antipsychotics: A Comprehensive Handbook

By Scott J. Pearson | July 12, 2025July 12, 2025 by Scott J. Pearson

Therapies for serious mental illness – namely, schizophrenia and bipolar disorder – have become more prevalent in recent decades. Second- and now third-generation antipsychotics more effectively deal with symptoms while having less stigma-provoking side effects. These diseases, once intractable, are now relatively treatable. This book provides a well-documented summary of the research about these drugs. Reading this book is not for the feint of heart. It’s highly technical and requires significant biomedical literacy. Most patients…

Indie Software-Technology

Software Architecture for Developers: Designing Scalable & Maintainable Systems for the Real World

By Scott J. Pearson | July 9, 2025July 9, 2025 by Scott J. Pearson

This book provides a succinct overview of the subjects a software architect interacts with on a regular basis in today’s world. That is, it portrays a high-level snapshot of the field in 2024. It summarizes what the current technologies are and lists the different conceptual frameworks software technology uses. Microservices, cloud computing, software as a function, and the packages that oversee it fill the lists that Steve Abrams provides. Its main weakness, however, is that…