Fresh Air, Shawn Levy and Peter Leschak

By: Terry Gross

Narrated by: Terry Gross

Author Shawn Levy and freelance fighter Peter Leschak on this edition of Fresh Air. Shawn Levy is the author of the new book Ready Steady, Go!: The Smashing Rise and Giddy Fall of Swinging London. It's about the time period in London 1961-1969. He writes, "for those few evanescent years it all came together: youth, pop music, fashion, celebrity, satire, crime, fine art, sexuality, scandal, theater, cinema, drugs, media: the whole mad modern stew." Levy is also the author of Rat Pack Confidential: Frank, Dean, Sammy, Peter, Joey & the Last Great Showbiz Party, and the biography, King of Comedy: The Life and Art of Jerry Lewis. Peter Leschak has battled forest fires in the Northwoods and the West for over 20 years. He's written several works of nonfiction as well as a memoir, Hellroaring. His new book is Ghost of the Fireground: Echoes of the Great Peshtigo Fire and the Calling of a Wildland Firefighter. It's about the 1871 wildfire in Peshtigo, Wisconsin, which was the deadliest fire in North American history. Coincidentally it started the very day and hour as the Great Chicago Fire. (Broadcast Dates: July 24 and July 31, 2002)

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