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Weekend Edition Saturday once again features summer readings from the Sunken Garden Poetry Festival, held at the Hill-Stead Museum in Farmington, Conn. The festival's 11th year continues with "The Floral Apron" by Marilyn Chin.

In a bare-bones cabin on Walden Pond, Henry David Thoreau wrote a bible for people who want to live in harmony with nature. On Morning Edition, Jill Kaufman explores the origins of Thoreau's Walden as part of NPR's Present at the Creation series on American icons.

The best place to recapture details about Earth's first days may be the moon. Meteorities crashed into the Earth regularly then, and some of the collisions may have be strong enough to blast bits of tale-telling Earth rocks to the lunar surface. NPR's David Kestenbaum reports.

A group of scientists reported finding a six or seven million-year-old skull in Chad, Central Africa. The specimen, the oldest hominid skull ever found, will shed new light on a mysterious period in human history. The new species has been nicknamed Toumao, a name for children born before the dry season in the African desert.

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.

Thirty years ago, the Flatlanders released their first record to almost universal indifference. Now, with the release of their second album, Now Again (New West Records), they're one of the nation's most talked about country bands, thanks to nationally syndicated radio host Don Imus. From member station KUHF in Houston, Ed Mayberry reports.

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.

Poet Vivian Shipley reads this week at the Sunken Garden Poetry Festival in Farmington, Connecticut. We hear her poem "Ode on a Beet," published in 1999 by Hanover Press. Ms. Shipley's most recent book of poetry is When There Is No Shore, published by Word Press.

Weekend Edition Sunday talks with several notables from various professions about their reading habits, their favorite books, and what they are reading this summer. This week: Judge Richard Posner, 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.

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."