If you have ever browsed the BooksAndGuidesPro catalog and noticed a recurring byline — John Shoufler — there is a reason. Twenty-two titles published since January 2025, spanning sci-fi thrillers, ADHD field guides, dad jokes, and a forensic exposé of modern American slavery. This is a working author writing across genres at production speed, and the catalog is starting to read like a small publishing house run by one person.
This guide is an honest tour of the Shoufler catalog — what each book is for, who it is written for, and which titles to read first depending on what brought you here. Browse the complete author profile at /books/author/john-shoufler, or skip to the section below that matches your interest.
Who is John Shoufler?
Before the books, there was the Navy. John spent six years as a nuclear reactor operator, then 21 years in the commercial nuclear power industry, holding senior reactor operator licenses on both pressurized-water and boiling-water reactors. He earned a BS in Nuclear Engineering Technology from Excelsior College and an MBA from the University of Illinois, and he is a certified procedure writer with the Professional Procedure Writers Association.
That background matters when you read the books. Whether the subject is technical writing or the social cost of human trafficking, Shoufler approaches it with a procedure writer’s discipline — sources cited, claims qualified, structure first. The result is a catalog that leans practical and dense without ever feeling academic.
Outside of writing, John runs several digital businesses including BooksAndGuidesPro itself, PassMyDMV, and SaraPalooza Designs. The books are not a side hobby — they are the personal-development arm of the same operator who built the bookstore you are reading this post on.
Fiction: thrillers, dystopia, and a sci-fi mystery worth reading first
If you came here for a novel, start with these three.
Whispers in the Wire (2025)
Whispers in the Wire is a sci-fi mystery built on a single chilling premise: at 3:14 a.m., a reclusive ex-programmer named Maya Reeves discovers that the hard drive her late brother gave her three years ago — sealed inside a Faraday cage, with no battery and no power source — has started talking.
What makes the book work is the restraint. Shoufler does not race to explain the impossible. He lets Maya sit with it, lets the grief over her brother’s death color every interaction, and lets the mystery unfold the way a real investigation would — through evidence, doubt, and the slow erosion of what Maya thought she knew. Good entry point if you like Blake Crouch or early Michael Crichton.
The Crown of Rust (2025)
The Crown of Rust sits on the dystopian-romance shelf. In the poisoned slums known as the Slags, rust gets into the pipes, the air, and the blood. Sara has watched it hollow out everyone she loves, and she is willing to bleed for one wish. The catch: he was built to make sure no one ever wins it.
Tonally, this is the most genre-aware book in the catalog. Readers who like the morally compromised love interests in Sarah J. Maas or Holly Black will recognize the shape of it. Shoufler keeps the worldbuilding tight and the stakes personal.
Trump, Musk & DOGE (2025)
Trump, Musk & DOGE is harder to categorize — part political analysis, part character study of two of the most-discussed figures of the decade and the Department of Government Efficiency they spun up together. It is reported with sources but written as narrative. Read it if you want a single tight volume on what actually happened, separate from cable-news framing.
Serious nonfiction: the books to give to a friend who needs them
The Shadows of Hope (2025)
The Shadows of Hope is the most ambitious book in the catalog. Subtitled an unflinching exposé of modern American slavery, it argues that human trafficking is not a historical relic but a central engine of the 21st-century economy — embedded in agricultural supply chains, hospitality labor, domestic work, and the fast-fashion pipeline most of us touch every week.
This is the procedure-writer Shoufler turned all the way up: rigorously sourced, structured around case studies, and unwilling to let the reader off the hook. Read it before you read any general-interest book on the subject this year.
Understanding and Thriving with ADHD (2025)
Understanding and Thriving with ADHD is written for three audiences at once — adults newly diagnosed, parents of kids on the spectrum of attention regulation, and educators trying to design classrooms that work. It is honest about what ADHD actually costs and clear about what helps. The format leans toward field guide rather than memoir.
Hyperconnected: Navigating the Mental Health Crisis in a Digital World (2025)
Hyperconnected tackles the cost of infinite scroll, persistent notifications, and the blurred line between work and personal life. Pair it with Digital Balance (2024) if you want the practical playbook for the same problem.
Rising Above: A Practical Guide to Overcoming Climate Anxiety (2024)
Rising Above is for readers who feel paralyzed by climate headlines. Shoufler does not minimize the science. He focuses instead on what individuals can actually do with the despair — agency over abstraction.
Parenting: practical guides without the lectures
Raising Digital Athletes (2025)
Raising Digital Athletes is the rare parenting book that takes esports seriously as a career path. It is written for parents whose first reaction to seeing their kid spend hours on Valorant or Rocket League is alarm — and it walks them through the actual industry: tournaments, scholarships, streaming income, agent contracts, and the warning signs that gaming has tipped into something unhealthy.
Bully-Proof Your Child (2024)
Bully-Proof Your Child handles modern bullying — including the cyberbullying surface — with the same practical voice. Useful for parents, useful for teachers, mercifully short on platitudes.
Business and skill-building
This is where Shoufler’s Navy and corporate background pays off most directly. Five titles to know:
- Mastering Technical Writing (2025, two editions) — a working manual from a certified procedure writer. The second edition is a complete rewrite incorporating reader feedback, with each section designed to stand alone.
- Mastering Social Media Management (2025) — step-by-step playbook for owner-operators who do not have a marketing team to delegate to.
- The Habit Code (2025) — habit-formation framed as system design rather than willpower.
- Shatterproof (2025) — resilience as a trainable skill, with anecdotes that earn their place.
- Future Unveiled (2025) — what AI, robotics, and biotech are actually doing to daily life, written for non-engineers.
Lifestyle and curiosities
Two titles that do not fit neatly anywhere and are better for it:
- Off the Grid (2025) — modern nomadic living, from the practical (water, power, internet) to the cultural (community without a fixed address).
- Beyond the Nose (2025) — a surprisingly absorbing book about the most underrated sense. Memory, mood, and the science of why a smell can put you back in your grandmother’s kitchen in half a second.
Humor: the dad jokes
Two volumes for the audience that knows what it is in for:
- Laugh Out Loud (or Just Sigh) with Dad (2025) — joke collection.
- Laugh Out Loud, Comic Strip Edition (2025) — illustrated companion in comic-strip form, celebrating the father-child relationship through the kind of humor only dads can love.
Where to start, by reader
- Sci-fi reader: Whispers in the Wire
- Dystopian-romance reader: The Crown of Rust
- Parent of a teen on a screen: Raising Digital Athletes, then Hyperconnected
- Adult navigating an ADHD diagnosis: Understanding and Thriving with ADHD
- Owner-operator who writes documentation or trains people: Mastering Technical Writing (2nd ed.)
- Anyone who wants one serious book to sit with this year: The Shadows of Hope
The full catalog
All 22 titles are listed on the John Shoufler author page with cover art, retailer links, and publication dates. Related catalogs: fiction, self-help, business.
If you read one and want to tell the author what you thought, John reads every message that comes through the BooksAndGuidesPro contact form — a small benefit of an author who also owns the bookstore.
Frequently Asked Questions
How many books has John Shoufler published?
John Shoufler has published 22 titles on BooksAndGuidesPro since January 2025, spanning sci-fi thrillers, ADHD field guides, dad jokes, family humor, and investigative nonfiction.
Where should a first-time reader start with the Shoufler catalog?
If you read fiction, start with Shatterproof or Future Unveiled. If you came for ADHD or mental-health resources, start with Hyperconnected or The Habit Code. If you want a quick, lighter read, try the Laugh Out Loud With Dad family joke book.
Are John Shoufler’s books available outside BooksAndGuidesPro?
Yes. Most titles are sold through Amazon, Barnes and Noble, and other major retailers. Each book page on BooksAndGuidesPro links to the available retailers for that title.
Are these self-published or traditionally published?
John Shoufler publishes independently. The full author page at /books/author/john-shoufler aggregates every title in one bibliography with descriptions, covers, and direct retailer links.
Does John Shoufler write nonfiction or fiction?
Both. The catalog includes sci-fi thrillers, contemporary fiction, ADHD and digital-wellness nonfiction, social-media management guides, family humor, and political nonfiction such as the Trump, Musk and Doge title.