"Michael bought this for me last year and I’d never read a book like it before. Since then I’ve discovered stuff like John Fante, Knut Hamsun… I read a lot more now I’ve discovered this style of writing.”"

"A collection of, yes, four works by John Fante. Rereading this at the moment. Fante is the man who inspired Bukowski and it'd be hard not to see how great that influence is as Bukowski said: "Fante was my God." Anyway it was that comment by CB that led me to Fante who I prefer as a writer if I had to pick. The crab-shooting passage of The Road to Los Angeles will stay with me for ever and Ask the Dustcorrect, a doomed Los Angeles romance is just fantastic. Robert Towne directed a film version of this a little while back. It's an admirable misfire but he did use the novel previously as a template for the LA of his Chinatown screenplay. The quartet also includes Wait Until Spring, Bandini and Dreams of Bunker Hill."

"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."