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Jack Coughlin, a gunnery sergeant in the Marines, is the author of the new book Shooter: The Autobiography of the Top-Ranked Marine Sniper. He grew up in a wealthy Boston suburb and joined the Marines at age 19, spending the next 20 years behind the scope of a long-range rifle as a sniper. He has more than 60 confirmed kills, 38 of which took place during Operation Iraqi Freedom.

The latest novel from best-selling English author Nick Hornby, A Long Way Down, focuses on a group of suicidal people who accidentally meet atop a tall building — and how that meeting changes their fates. He also writes "Stuff I've Been Reading," a column for The Believer magazine. Many of Hornby's novels have been made into films, including About a Boy, High Fidelity and Fever Pitch.

Yippie Abbie Hoffman was arrested in one while protesting the Vietnam War in 1968. Gen. Richard Myers, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, wore one while joining fellow Vietnam veterans for a tribute this past Memorial Day. Their attire? Shirts that looked like flags.

As special master of the Federal Sept. 11 Victim Compensation Fund, Feinberg decided how much families of the terrorist attacks' victims would receive and which family members were eligible for compensation. He also was on a team that determined the fair market value of the Zapruder film of the Kennedy assassination. Feinberg has written a book about his work on the Sept. 11 Fund, What is Life Worth?: The Unprecedented Effort to Compensate the Victims of 9/11.

Don Kroodsma records the unique, regional dialects of both birds and the people who love to listen to them. In his new book, he champions a theory: Like people, birds also have their own "accents."

The reviewer offers summer reading options, including fiction, poetry and short-story collections. He suggests titles from Jane Alison, Arthur C. Clarke, William Carlos Williams and more.

Gloria Hillard recently joined the growing ranks of self-published authors, and reports on the how self-publishing firms are answering a growing desire by writers to see their words in print — and get around the air-tight New York City publishing houses.

The Japanese director won the Academy Award for Spirited Away. His latest animated work is Howl's Moving Castle. He and others talk about making serious films for audiences young and old.

In Genius Factory, author and Slate columnist David Plotz traces the history of a so-called "Nobel Prize" sperm bank. Plotz tells Jennifer Ludden of his quest to find the bank's "genius" donors — most weren't what they were represented to be — and their offspring.

Robin Meloy Goldsby has spent decades making "pleasant and unobtrusive" background music as a cocktail lounge piano player. Now she steps front and center with a memoir called Piano Girl: Lessons in Life, Music, and the Perfect Blue Hawaiian.