Summer is a season when people get hypersocial — with barbecues and neighborhood fairs, graduations and pool parties. In short, it's an especially trying time for those of us who'd rather stay indoors and read a book. My early summer reading list, therefore, takes the form of a loner's survival guide.
The advent of serious, thoughtful, artistically ambitious television has brought us many marvelous shows: Mad Men, Breaking Bad, The Good Wife. And the growth of comedies with strong points of view has allowed oddball projects like 30 Rock and Community to emerge and earn praise.
The United States is pulling a team of negotiators from Pakistan and they will be leaving without securing a deal to reopen an important military supply line into Afghanistan.
"'I believe that some of the team left over the weekend and the remainder of the team will leave shortly,' George Little, a Pentagon spokesman, told reporters. 'This was a U.S. decision.'"
Joan Rivers says her material has only gotten stronger with age. "I always say, 'What are you going to do? Are you going to fire me? Been fired. Going to be bankrupt? Been bankrupt.'"
I'm Michel Martin, and this is TELL ME MORE from NPR News. These days, when people talk about the leading names in R&B and soul, a certain big-voiced British woman is often the first name to come to mind, but there's an American in the house whose name is being mentioned in the same sentence as some of the leading voices in soul. His name is Ryan Shaw.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "YOU DON'T KNOW NOTHING ABOUT LOVE")
