Lots of links stacked up around here during Recommendations From Under the Radar week. Hope you find some of these articles as interesting as I did:

From Smithsonian (I love this magazine), Washington Post book critic Jonathan Yardley on why Newport means so much to him.

Also in the Smithsonian, a most impressive photographic discovery. I love this kind of archives story; it's proof that there is so much significant, enlightening, and downright interesting work out there still waiting to be found. (The Museum of the City of New York has an exhibition of Eugene de Salignac's photos as well.)

And Rory Stewart is in Afghanistan. I reviewed his book, The Places In Between earlier this year. What an interesting guy, and an outstanding travel writer.

I am endlessly curious about the Sacco and Vanzetti case which remains unsolved and mysterious so many decades later. (This new book sounds excellent.) I, of course, did not learn about this in school but from Rick Boyar's wonderful mystery, The Penny Ferry. He's a great writer; I have no idea what happened to him but I really loved his books. (I still have this one, in its tattered paperback condition.)

Sydney White is a Snow White remake that I have heard nothing about. Granted, it's a teen movie (set on a college campus) but still, it sounds like a lot of fun from Johanna's review. The dwarfs are nerds this go-round, and it sounds like it really works well. Here's a bit that really got me jazzed:

How can you not like a college film where the big inspirational “come on, we can pull together and do this” speech revolves around taking a lesson from when the Avengers fought the Black Knight who’d trapped a city in foam glue?

Come on you're laughing right now aren't you?! I'm so going to see this movie. (And yea - Danny Strong returns!)

The Morning News showcased Thomas Allen's book art. Someday I'm going to own some of this guy's work; I just adore it. (The two cowboys might be my favorite...)

Katherine Howell guest-posted at Sarah Weinman's about trying to get past your own emotions while writing a memoir (in her case about being a paramedic). God can I ever relate.

Over at the Savage Critics Jeff looks at Buffy Season 8. I agree with some of what he says but I'm going to go out on a limb here and tell the world that I liked both Seasons 6 and 7. I know that is partly heresy in the Buffy world, but to me both seasons were pretty damn typical for life in your early 20s. Friends struggle to stay together and get way more wrapped up in their own lives then caring about everyone else's. They make bad romantic choices, they aren't honest with themselves or other people. They take crappy jobs and get frustrated by how crappy they are and they wonder big time if anything really matters. Season 6 is me the first five years after college (it was endless....). Is it all monster fun? No - but that was never the point. And for those of you who aren't reading Season 8 in the comic you missing a lot of Buffy goodness; it is fantastic. (And yea- Faith returns next week!)

Zadie Smith writes about Their Eyes Were Watching God and goes on about all sorts of big themes and ideas. I love this book mostly because of the storm scenes, which are amazingly written, and also the fact that it is about African American life in the south that few books address. I have been to Eatonville and Zora Neale Hurston actually lived in my hometown for a little while. (Of course we never studied her in school though.) It's not an easy book, stylistically, to read though and that might be what puts people off of it. (But makes it perfect for studying in English class!)

And Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie touches on a topic (albeit in a different way) that Ben Okri also talks about , western literature and Africa. I have struggled to find the appeal of Jane Austen as her perspective is so foreign to my own - it's hard to understand her perspective (I find it much easier in a biography rather than fiction.) I do think Conrad is a great writer - but Heart of Darkness is not about Africa, but the white man in Africa which is a whole other thing. As Sean Penn gets ready to unleash his vision of "Into the Wild" into theaters everywhere this month (a vision that closely follows Jon Krakauer's), I'm thinking alot about truth and fiction and how mixed the two can get. Into the Wild is not the Alaska I knew - it is the Alaska of rash stupidity and recklessness. And while the story is true, I don't think it should be celebrated. Joseph Conrad is not the official word on Africa and Chris McCandless is not the word on Alaska but they are the voices that are loudly heard, which is really frustrating for those of us who know better.

More on all that later this week.

[Post pictures both by Eugene de Salignac. A lot more can be seen at the Smithsonian article and the City of NY exhibition site.]