Scott J. Pearson’s Book Review

The Unsettling of America: Culture & Agriculture

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

I don’t reside in the natural audience of this book. Professionally, I work developing technologies at an academic medical center in a city. Therefore, my orientation is for technology, and I’m generally ignorant about agriculture. I acknowledge those biases. I read this book because I’ve long been curious about agrarian-type thinkers like GK Chesterton. I respect Wendell Berry’s fiction about small-town America, and I seek to understand the world better, including perspectives different than me.…

Lucky Child: A Daughter of Cambodia Reunites with the Sister She Left Behind

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

Any book that makes me pour tears in the last chapter is worth five stars to me, and this book fit that bill to a tee. In the late 1970s and early 1980s, the war in Cambodia with the Khmer Rouge opened a limited slots for one family to emigrate to Vermont. The quota only allows room for three: an older brother, his wife, and one sister. The rest of the family had to separate.…

Religion-Philosophy

The Cost of Ambition: How Striving to Be Better Than Others Makes Us Worse

By Scott J. Pearson | September 7, 2025September 7, 2025 by Scott J. Pearson

Self-interested ambition seems to fuel society in the West. For instance, politicians try to achieve dominance over the opposition; sports figures try to become a “GOAT” – even when the GOATs change every year! Even religious leaders try to be “the man” (and it’s usually a man) despite religion’s calls for humility. In 1776, Adam Smith saw self-interested motivations as one of the strengths fueling capitalism. Today’s society, by and large, admires strivers over those…

Biography-Memoir Religion-Philosophy Science

Blaise Pascal: The Man Who Made the Modern World

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

I have had a 25-year fascination with Blaise Pascal, and this book did nothing but nurture my admiration even more. He applied his fecund mind to so many topics and discovered the vacuum, pioneered computation, founded probability theory and conic sections, and wrote one of the most enigmatic yet persuasive defenses of Christianity’s reasonableness. Any book that helps me swap my wits with his, even if only by a little, helps me become better at…

Biography-Memoir Kids Science

Reaching for the Moon: The Autobiography of NASA Mathematician Katherine Johnson

By Scott J. Pearson | August 29, 2025August 29, 2025 by Scott J. Pearson

Recent decades have shed light on how the history of science has forgotten key figures, often women and often people of color. In the quest to put a man on the moon, scientific efforts often relied on black women as the book and movie Hidden Figures chronicled. This autobiography captures one of those personalities Katherine Johnson in her own words. She writes towards a middle school audience who might like science, technology, engineering, and math…

Biography-Memoir Society

Looking at Women Looking at War: A War & Justice Diary

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

Victoria Amelina died shortly before she was to leave Ukraine to compile her war diary into a book. She left behind an 11-year-old son in another country. She wanted to document the injustice of Russia’s centuries-long attempt to obliterate Ukrainian culture. Before the Russian invasion, she organized Ukrainian literary festivals. After the invasion, she documented war crimes against humanity from this wave of conflict and recurring genocidal attempts throughout history to erase Ukrainian self-identity. Amelina’s…

Religion-Philosophy

A Public Faith: How Followers of Christ Should Serve the Common Good

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

Our Sunday School class chose this book to discuss over the summer, and I led discussions. I found the discussion guide and videos from the Yale Center for Faith & Culture helpful. We discussed the topic of religion in the public square shortly after the 2024 US election, which made moderating conversation challenging. Christian nationalism is ascendant today, a phenomenon only alluded to in Volf’s book. In his era, Muslim nationalism was the main threat,…

Writing-Communication

The Secrets of Story

By Scott J. Pearson | August 17, 2025August 17, 2025 by Scott J. Pearson

Matt Bird graduated with an MFA from an Ivy League university, but soon found that he knew a lot less about a writing career than he thought. After graduation, instead of just pleasing his teachers, he had to learn to work in the storytelling industry – sink or swim. To move forward, he has spent his life rigorously looking at successful stories as they actually are and what makes them work. His wisdom eventually brought…

Family

The Complete Guide to Building Backyard Ponds, Fountains & Waterfalls

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

The most important step in preparing for a water feature in one’s yard is preparation. Therefore, I read this book and one other. This book was slightly more accessible, but definitely less authoritative, than the other one. Its chapter on waterfalls was helpful to orient me to the overall process required to build a small stream with a pump. It didn’t have a ton of obscure but invaluable “tricks of the trade” to help me,…

Management-Business Society

What Works for Women at Work: Four Patterns Working Women Need to Know

By Scott J. Pearson | August 7, 2025August 7, 2025 by Scott J. Pearson

I have mixed reactions about this book. On the good side, the book is thoroughly researched with original work. The authors interviewed dozens of women in dozens of work settings about their workplace experiences. It covers the field comprehensively and leaves no important issue untouched. Topics include things like marital work-sharing, being a mother in the workplace, generational changes, and working with other women. It even has a summary of twenty action points in a…