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Summer reading season is here! We' have some top book picks for you, courtesy of NPR staffers.

Over a lifetime, Martyn Stewart has recorded the sounds of a changing planet. Now, he's made an album with music producer ONR. "Imperfect Cadence" is a call to conserve the wilds of Scotland.

The nearly 10-minute long song "Bat Out of Hell" opens the classic album by the late singer Meat Loaf. Music academics Elizabeth Wollman and Emily Gale take a close look at the epic track.

Daniel talks with photographer Thomas Roma who took pictures at 52 African-American Christian churches in Brooklyn - many of them storefront churches. The photographs depict congregants and pastors during sunday morning worship services. Some of these photographs are in the book, "Come Sunday:Photographs by Thomas Roma" (published by The Museum of Modern Art). The photographs are currently on dispay at The Museum of Modern Art in New York through June 18th, 1996. Included in this interview is music from two churches: Reverend Jerry Burns and the Open Door Singers (of the Open Door Outreach Ministry/Brooklyn) and The Mo Gbeke Mi Le O Choir Band (of the Cherubim and Seraphim Movement Church Olutunu/Brooklyn).

Singer-songwriter Neil Young discusses his latest album, Prairie Wind. It was recorded as Young was being treated for a brain aneurysm earlier this year.

Texas singer-songwriter Jimmie Dale Gilmore brings together country, folk, blues and rock in his 2005 album Come On Back. The album is a touching tribute to the artist's father, who died of ALS in 2000.

Conor Oberst, lead singer of Bright Eyes, captured public attention as a protest singer with artistic ambitions. At 27, he seems to have mellowed. "Make a Plan to Love Me" is a gentle throwback to the '60s.

NPR's Scott Simon talks with husband and wife Cruz and Robinella Contreras, founders of the bluegrass quintet Robinella & the CCstringband. They got their start playing a Knoxville brew pub. Now the group has a major label record deal and a rapidly growing fan base.

KCRW's Travis Holcombe brings us sounds from Norway and France, including Todd Terje, Tôg, Katerine and Jamaica.