"Studs Terkel was a radio host in Chicago who also wrote fantastic oral histories about 20th century America by interviewing regular people about their lives. He covered the Great Depression in Hard Times; World War II in The Good War; and, in this book, what people’s jobs mean to them. His books are invaluable time capsules of how Americans in previous generations spoke and thought about themselves."

"I just re-read Ask the Dust by John Fante. It’s semiautobiographical about a guy who’s trying to be a writer in Los Angeles, and it takes place during the Great Depression. It was one of my favorite books in college. It was crazy to re-read it in my 30s, as well as to live vicariously through some of the places that I haven’t seen in almost two months. I’m also trying to keep things light so I’ve been reading Fifty Great Short Stories by Milton Crane."

"I just re-read Ask the Dust by John Fante. It’s semiautobiographical about a guy who’s trying to be a writer in Los Angeles, and it takes place during the Great Depression. It was one of my favorite books in college. It was crazy to re-read it in my 30s, as well as to live vicariously through some of the places that I haven’t seen in almost two months. I’m also trying to keep things light so I’ve been reading Fifty Great Short Stories by Milton Crane."

"At first this book first gives you a ‘reader’s digest’ version of how the world leaders really were. That’s interesting enough. But it goes on to show you how the brain works when a person is depressed, and how to overcome it. It is fascinating and full of important information. I kept reading thinking “great to know the other side of our leaders we didn’t know.” But then, in the end, there is a surprise! It shows the current scientific findings of the link between depression and empathy, we knew only as a moral and idealistic trait. Now it seems they found a point of brain that corresponds to empathy, scientifically, which is connected to depression, its cause, and also as its cure."