Am I ready to retire? Should I stay or should I go? Who will I be if I retire? Planning for retirement brings a plethora of questions to ponder. Esteemed LA Times columnist Steve Lopez shares his year-long exploration of these, and other questions, in his new book Independence Day: What I Learned About Retirement from Some Who’ve Done It and Some Who Never Will. His journey included conversations with a wide range of people with different perspectives on retirement that informed his own decision on whether to retire, keep going - or do something else. The observations and insights can help you retire smarter - in a way that's right for you.

Steve Lopez joins us from Southern California.

Bio

Steve Lopez is a California native who has been an L.A. Times columnist since 2001. He has won more than a dozen national journalism awards for his reporting and column writing at seven newspapers and four news magazines, and is a four-time Pulitzer finalist for commentary – in 2012, for his columns on elder care; in 2016, for his columns on income inequality in California; in 2018, for his columns on housing and homelessness; and in 2020, for purposeful pieces about rising homelessness in Los Angeles, which amplified calls for government action to deal with a long-visible public crisis.

He is the author of three novels, two collections of columns and a non-fiction work called “The Soloist,” which was a Los Angeles Times and New York Times best-seller, winner of the PEN USA Literary Award for Non-Fiction, and the subject of a Dream Works movie by the same name. Lopez’s television reporting for public station KCET has won three local news Emmys, three Golden Mike awards and a share of the Columbia University DuPont Award.

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For More on Steve Lopez

Independence Day: What I Learned About Retirement from Some Who’ve Done It and Some Who Never Will

The Soloist: A Lost Dream, an Unlikely Friendship, and the Redemptive Power of Music

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Podcast Episodes You May Like

The Unretirement Life – Richard Eisenberg

The Emotional Side of Retiring – Kate Schroeder

Purpose & a Paycheck – Chris Farrell

If You Love Your Work, What Challenges Will You Face in Retirement? – Michelle Pannor Silver

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Are You Ready to Retire?

How prepared are you for the non-financial side of retirement? Take our free quiz.

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How to Win the Retirement Game

(It Might Just Be the Most Important Game of Your Life)

What Readers Are Saying:

           “Definitely the best book I’ve read on the non-financial aspects of retirement.”

           “I wish I had this book when I retired.”

           “…the book is amazingly readable, and chock full of insights.”

           “This is the book I didn’t know I needed after retiring!”

           “This is a great gift for anyone anticipating retirement years or already in the thick of it.”

Amazon    Barnes & Noble    Bookshop.org

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Wise Quotes

On the Transition to Retirement

"...there are a lot of things that surprised me. One thing I had not given a lot of thought to, and I was persuaded by among other people, a woman by the name of Nancy Schlossberg, who is in her nineties and lives in Sarasota, Florida. I hope her house is still there after the storm. She talked about how much thought should go into this time in your life, because this is a huge transition. And it's not just going from work to not working. There's a transition in every aspect of your life and your relationship, say,