Here’s a tip from experience: before you undertake a major house renovation, be sure to check the pandemic forecast. In the fall of 2019, Jean and I had grown tired of our tiny kitchen and tiny dining room and decided to see if we could remedy both problems at once. We engaged Dylan—a nephew...
After 11 years under the wordpress.com umbrella, today marks a new beginning for Shoulblog, now at its own, self-hosted site, johnshoulberg.com. Along with the new address, the blog has a completely different design; the home page features a slider across the top for featured posts, and a grid pattern below offering post excerpts with...
For as awful a year as 2020 was, at least it was good for me in one respect: I read a number of great books last year. Here are the books I liked enough to give five-star ratings to on Goodreads in 2020: The Monkey Wrench Gang, by Edward Abbey. You will have read...
When I think about the books that are honored as the top reads in a given year, I usually find that I haven’t read even a tiny percentage of the “best” books listed. I’m a decent reader; I have an annual goal of 25 books in a year, and I usually get fairly close...
My dad said he didn’t sleep well his first night in the assisted-living facility. It was because of the music. This was in October. After some eight years in an associated independent living facility down the street, he’d had two hospitalizations in six months, each followed by a short stint in a rehab facility....
This is our routine. I get their leashes on and nudge Molly toward the front door. She slowly, awkwardly, haltingly walks to the door and goes out. Daisy is always several steps ahead of her ......
Do I think you care about what books I have read and am planning to read next? Of course not. But do I secretly hope that someone will pay attention and actually get some ideas for books to read from these posts? Sure. I’d even welcome some return comments like, “hey, since you read...
Ah, December. As the year winds down, all the major periodical publications start putting out their “Best of the Year” lists. And for me, the best of the “best” lists are the “Best Books of the Year” lists. This phenomenon means there’s no shortage of ideas for books to read. I’m not going to...
It’s been almost two years since I wrote one of these last five/next five book lists. A lot more than five books have gone down in that time; there’s no “catching up” here. But let’s jump in for a snapshot of where we are today. The last five books I’ve read, oldest to most...
Fifty years ago this week, on July 3, 1969, Rolling Stones guitarist and founder Brian Jones was found dead in his swimming pool. The death was ruled to be accidental, but to this day, conspiracy theories circulate that he was murdered. Jones had actually been forced out of the band earlier that year, and...
