Biography-Memoir – Page 4 – Scott J. Pearson’s Book Review

Leaving: How I Set Myself Free from an Abusive Marriage

By Scott J. Pearson | April 11, 2023January 22, 2023 by Scott J. Pearson

An abusive marriage filled with domestic violence is one of the worst possible outcomes of a marriage. While betrothed, it can be hard to foresee this result, but it can take a lifetime to recover from the trauma. If children are involved, they, too, can be scarred with worse mental health outcomes. Sometimes, social constraints – such as living in a patriarchal culture or under a country’s oppressive, misogynistic legal system – can make matters…

Biography-Memoir

Benjamin Banneker & Us: 11 Generations of an American Family

By Scott J. Pearson | April 2, 2023April 2, 2023 by Scott J. Pearson

Living in the Revolutionary War period, Benjamin Banneker was a genius in an age of American greatness. He was a freed black man in Maryland who built a clock out of wood (yes, you read that right), published several almanacs, and critically helped survey the land for the District of Columbia. Rachel Jamison Webster found out in recent years that she is a white relative of his. A writing professor at Northwestern, she constructs a…

Build: An Unorthodox Guide to Making Things Worth Making

By Scott J. Pearson | March 19, 2023March 19, 2023 by Scott J. Pearson

Tony Fadell assumes that the reader knew of his career by virtue of picking up this book. That was not the case with me. I develop software and implement technology solutions for a living and found the title intriguing. Fadell led iPod and iPhone hardware teams at Apple and pioneered the Nest “connected home” technology company (now Google Nest). So as an author, he brings some “street cred” to the topic of building technology companies.…

Biography-Memoir Indie Writing-Communication

We are the Words: The Master Memoir Class

By Scott J. Pearson | February 16, 2023February 16, 2023 by Scott J. Pearson

Writing a memoir seems deceivingly easy at first. Anyone can write about their own life, right? Yet crafting a good memoir – one that vividly communicates and mesmerizes with its words – is a difficult task. As this book’s title infers, a memoir consists of the writer’s life becoming the words, which in turn take on a life of their own. Its author Beth Kephart teaches writing at workshops and an Ivy League university (the…

Biography-Memoir History

A Promised Land by Barack Obama

By Scott J. Pearson | February 13, 2023February 13, 2023 by Scott J. Pearson

When Barack Obama was born, few would have predicted that we’d witness a black US president in his lifetime. And yet he accomplished that himself. When he was elected president, few would have likewise predicted the depths of divide his presidency would unearth. And yet we are here. The pomp and circumstance of politics, as first told by the media, need to be supplemented by presidential memoirs to understand the logic of decisions. Though obviously…

Biography-Memoir History

Master Slave Husband Wife: An Epic Journey from Slavery to Freedom

By Scott J. Pearson | January 17, 2023November 23, 2022 by Scott J. Pearson

I first heard the Crafts’ story as a student in American History class in a South Carolina high school. My teacher shared how the Fugitive Slave Law of 1850 was first tested with a couple in Boston who recently escaped slavery. Mass protests made a mockery of the enslavers’ efforts, the Crafts eluded capture by escaping, and the slave-catchers returned to Georgia empty-handed. I remember that the story seemed more complicated than that, but even…

Biography-Memoir

Educated: A Memoir

By Scott J. Pearson | January 12, 2023January 12, 2023 by Scott J. Pearson

This book stems from a profoundly foundational family squabble. Westover’s parents practice a strictly conservative form of Mormonism in Idaho. They follow the virtue of self-reliance to the point that they did not put their children into school or get them birth certificates. However, some of their children, like the author, ended up making their ways into college and eventually graduate school. This memoir tells one daughter’s life from rural Idaho into BYU and eventually…

Biography-Memoir History

And There Was Light: Abraham Lincoln & the American Struggle

By Scott J. Pearson | December 31, 2022December 31, 2022 by Scott J. Pearson

“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness.” These words were written by an enslaver who held to white supremacy, yet they inspired a nation and inspire it still. A few (like Dr. King) have reached Lincoln’s heights, but no one has surpassed his personal struggle for a union without…

Biography-Memoir Healthcare Science Society

The Code Breaker: Jennifer Doudna, Gene Editing & the Future of the Human Race

By Scott J. Pearson | December 14, 2022December 14, 2022 by Scott J. Pearson

In our generation, codes comprise some of the most interesting subjects of study. We code computers to do work for us; we also are beginning to decode the genetic code to propel life forward. The discovery of CRISPR promises to allow us to edit the human genome, and Professor Doudna sits among this innovation’s prime discoverers. Along with another female scientist Professor Charpentier, she won the Nobel Prize for Chemistry in 2020. This biography, written…

Biography-Memoir Healthcare HIV/AIDS

Nurses on the Inside: Stories of the HIV/AIDS Epidemic in NYC

By Scott J. Pearson | November 25, 2022November 25, 2022 by Scott J. Pearson

Much has changed since HIV/AIDS first started spreading widely in America. Fortunately, we now have better drugs to treat HIV infections. The healthcare system focuses on prevention through PrEP. America is more accepting of homosexuality, though more progress can always be made. Some things remain similar, though. Preventative vaccines are still a hoped-for but not realized dream. The stigma of a diagnosis still exists, but not nearly as badly as it did in the 1980s…