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The dark comedy by David Hare chronicles the tangle of diplomatic maneuvers leading to the war. It hints that President Bush and top advisers intended to invade Iraq even before the Sept. 11 attacks.

Christopher O'Riley, host of NPR's From the Top, considers Elliott Smith to be one America's greatest songwriters. Smith died in 2003 before ever achieving massive fame. O'Riley's latest release, Home to Oblivion, is a classical translation of Smith's work.

One of the world's top female wrestlers is featured in this week's installment of the Weekend Edition Sunday summer reading series. Toccara Montgomery will compete in Athens in the 72-kilogram weight division. She talked about books with NPR's Liane Hansen before leaving for the Summer Games.

Judi Dench has won major acting awards on both sides of the Atlantic, including the Oscar, the Tony and six Oliviers (England's top theatrical honor). The British actress is famous for Shakespearean roles, but she's also played spy chief M in James Bond films and currently appears in the Vin Diesel science fiction action flick The Chronicles of Riddick. NPR's Susan Stamberg interviews Dench about the art of acting.

The world's top-ranked player Novak Djokovic won't play at the upcoming BNP Paribas Open at Indian Wells after losing his bid to enter the U.S. unvaccinated to play in the Southern California event.

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.

There's no shortage of life, death or profundity in "The '59 Sound," a mile-wide, top-down, hook-laden beast of a summer anthem. But as swollen and adrenaline-infused as it is, it's really a song about the last music each of us gets to hear in our lives.

In 1959, jazz pianist Dave Brubeck topped the pop charts and shook up the notion of rhythm in jazz with an odd-metered song called "Take Five." On the occasion of its golden anniversary and a new reissue of Time Out, Brubeck explains why it was such a hit.

At first, "Roll Your Dice" sounds like a typical Top 40 song of longing. Then comes a sound infrequently heard in popular music: a percussive arpeggio on a 36-string Veracruz harp. The stringed instrument serves as the centerpiece of "Roll Your Dice," by the multicultural quartet Rey Fresco — Spanish for "King Cool."

Always provocative, the band jettisons post-punk thrash in favor of a sturdier Top 40 pop sound that recalls the early to mid-'80s.