Bruce: In Tuesday’s Washington Post, Bruce Springsteen‘s introduction to journalism professor Dale Maharidge and WaPo photographer Michael S. Williamson‘s latest book, Someplace Like America: Tales From the New Great Depression, is repurposed for the Style section. Springsteen writes that Maharidge and Williamson’s previous book, Journey to Nowhere, inspired him to pick up his pen: “I had completed most of the [The Ghost of] Tom Joad record when one night, some 15 years ago, unable to sleep, I pulled a book down off my living room shelf. I read it in one sitting, and I lay awake that night disturbed by its power and frightened by its implications. In the next week, I wrote ‘Youngstown’ and The New Timer.'”

More Post fare: Journalist finds pink iPod Shuffle in Sligo Creek, and relocates its owner by posting her (embarrassing) playlist on the Internet … Theater directors give props to their favorite productions of the year … The latest guy to sue James Cameron is D.C.’s Bryant Moore, who claims the director stole ideas from two screenplays he submitted to Cameron’s production company. Those “bioluminescent rainforests of gargantuan alien trees”? All his idea, he says.

Today on Arts Desk: The Top 10 local tracks of 2011!