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Former fire commissioner of New York City, Thomas Von Essen. He led the department through the Sept. 11 attacks and during rescue and early recovery efforts. During the attacks, the department lost 343 men, many of them Von Essen's friends and colleagues. Von Essen stepped down as fire commissioner on December 31, 2001. He's written a new memoir with Matt Murray, Strong of Heart: Life and Death in the Fire Department of New York.

Leo Litwak is a retired San Francisco State University professor of English. He's the author of the new memoir, The Medic: Life and Death in the Last Days of World War II (Penguin Books). Litwak was a 19-year-old medic. One reviewer writes, "[A] book that should be given to every schoolboy in the country at the age of 13... the Medic teaches us so much, makes clear that sometimes the monsters in war are not only the enemy."

The phrases "toga! toga!" and "food fight!" were shouted in countless dorm rooms the summer of 1978, all thanks to National Lampoon's Animal House, the movie starring John Belushi. On Morning Edition, as part of NPR's Present at the Creation series, Molly Peterson tells the story of the film that defined college humor for a generation.

Neil Young may be the hardest man in rock 'n' roll to pin down. Biographer Jimmy McDonough tried his best, but as he tells Scott Simon on Weekend Edition Saturday, he couldn't do it, even in 800-plus pages. But it sure was fun trying.

Just in time for the Fourth of July, Morning Edition's Alex Chadwick ships off for barbecue boot camp and learns how to grill "beer-can" chicken. After successfully preparing his bird for cooking, Chadwick encounters a near disaster -- but survives to taste and tell.

Lee Child's Without Fail, Walter Mosley's Bad Boy Brawly Brown, and John Sandford's Mortal Prey -- NPR's Linda Wertheimer has put these "bad-boy mysteries" on her summer reading list, and interviewed their authors. On Morning Edition, Wertheimer sizes up the fictional tough guy who can be "romantic, even vulnerable, in between cracking heads."

Forty years after Andy Warhol's first exhibition, the Museum of Contemporary Art in Los Angeles is hosting a retrospective of the artist's work. The exhibition boasts 200 works spanning Warhol's career, including examples of his most famous series like Campbell's Soup cans and Marilyn Monroe. Eric Roy of member station KCRW reports for Morning Edition.

From almost the beginning of the broadcast era, audiences have had a taste for seeing -- and before that, hearing -- themselves on the air. On Present at the Creation, Peter Sagal, host of NPR's Wait Wait... Don't Tell Me!, explores the origins of the quiz show.

Asian longhorned beetles are eating their way through hardwood trees in New York and Chicago, and experts worry the pests are spreading. A new tool, using acoustic clues, may make it easier for inspectors to detect the beetles. NPR's Melissa Block reports for Morning Edition.

In his third report on the 24th Marine Expeditionary Unit of Camp Lejeune, N.C., NPR's David Molpus went along on several different types of rescue and attack exercises. Hear the story on Morning Edition.