Many people spend their working years looking forward to the time when they can retire. But when that time comes, leaving a steady income and identity a job provides can be scary. How does a person know if he or she is ready, or even wants to retire? Steve Lopez, a longtime columnist for the Los Angeles Times, faces the same questions. Grappling with his own decision, he used his reporter skills not only to look inward but also to interview experts and peers to collect a variety of perspectives on retirement. Steve writes about what he learned in his latest book, Independence Day: What I Learned About Retirement, from Some Who’ve Done It And Some Who Never Will. Steve is a four-time Pulitzer Prize finalist and best-selling author who is the winner of more than a dozen national journalism awards. He has written three novels and a best-selling non-fiction book, The Soloist, which is the subject of a Dreamworks movie by the same name.

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