What defines a “real” man? A “good” man? A fully developed, “self-actualized” man, untroubled by fears of weakness, inadequacy, or old school stereotypes? With Father’s Day approaching, we decided to take a look at books old and new and Web sites on the subject of manhood. The introduction to therapist Thomas Hart’s 2004 book, What Does It Mean to Be a Man? ($12) begins, “The trouble begins when a little boy is told that boys don’t cry.” The table of contents promises a rich read, with chapters on “Mastering Anger and Violence,” “Putting Sex and Love Together” and “Being a Dad.” Sam Keen’s 1992 best-selling Fire in the Belly: On Being a Man ($11) is still an extremely high-ranking seller at Amazon. It offers a brief history of manhood and asks men to look at their unconscious bondage to certain ideas about “woman,” their dependence on work for self-worth, and their “warrior psyches” and it even promotes ecological awareness as an alternative to destructive, domineering tendencies. It wasn’t too long ago that much was made about the “crisis” for boys as they fell behind in school due to supposed neglect and denial of their gender-specific needs. From higher rates of attention deficit disorder to lower test scores than girls and greater abuse of alcohol and drugs, the crisis gave us the important work of therapist and educator Michael Gurian. His 1997 blockbuster, The Wonder of Boys: What Parents, Mentors, Educators Can Do to Shape Boys Into Exceptional Men, ($10.50) is the bible for how to understand and raise boys. Read Gurian’s Amazon blog to check out his philosophy. And check out Menstuff, an expansive Web site started by Gordon Clay as a not-for-profit educational clearinghouse/resource center for all things related to men’s issues.

Fans of Saturday Night Live who’ve resigned themselves to the idea that full-season reissues of the show’s golden age would be limited to one every Christmas, take note: Bucking its recent pattern, Universal has just put out Saturday Night Live: The Complete Third Season, a set that catches the show at, if not its absolute finest hour, then certainly one of the peaks. These full-length shows from 1977 and 1978 include outings with well-loved hosts Steve Martin and Buck Henry; musical guests both exotic (Sun Ra) and legendary (Ray Charles, who did double-duty as host); and the now-weird sight of O. J. Simpson fronting one February 1978 broadcast. Vintage SNL captures a New York City that was, for good or ill, scrubbed clean during the Giuliani years; those nostalgic for pre-gentrification Manhattan should seek out a couple of recent evocative books: The images in Martha Cooper’s New York State of Mind ($30), shot for the New York Post during the late ’70s, focus on vibrant street life; those in Vivian Cherry’s Helluva Town ($40), taken in the ’40s and ’50s, are a good deal more downbeat, evoking a Depression hangover even when they depict pastimes, like bocce ball, that look like fun in Cooper’s book. The publisher of both releases, PowerHouse, makes a specialty of Big Apple artists — its latest offering, A Fine Example of Art ($45), showcases the eccentric paintings of John Lurie, better known as a jazz saxophonist and the star of Stranger than Paradise. Speaking of that Depression vibe brings to mind a new reissue of a classic book by Berenice Abbott: Changing New York ($60) collects the work she did in the ’30s for the WPA — arranged geographically, she chronicled architecture that has since disappeared or been hidden by more modern, less beautiful buildings. Photo-book fans who like their New York a little closer to “Live!,” meanwhile, should check out two small new volumes devoted to Manhattan’s sister borough. Brooklyn Street Art and Brooklyn Storefronts are exactly what they sound like: color-crammed photo collections showcasing evidence of the kind of diverse population and exuberant, hand-made creativity that you used to find in Manhattan before rents made it off-limits to all but the most corporate tenants.

This weekend, an 1895 poster of Sarah Bernhardt by artist Alphonse Mucha (pictured) was sold at auction for $36,000 (plus auction house fees). Aren’t posters supposed to be the art that normal people can collect? Sadly, even old ads by painters far less famous than Mucha can cost a bundle these days, but there are plenty of recent books aimed at design lovers with larger eyes than wallets. Take the fascinating Translating Hollywood, a movie poster book full of unfamiliar designs for beloved movies; cinephiles have long noted that some foreign countries (particularly Eastern European ones) are much more creative than Hollywood when it comes to cinema promotions, and this gem-filled book offers a wealth of examples. Two region-specific titles lean heavily on politics: Latin American Posters offers Castro, Che, and plenty of protests against human-rights abuses; North Korean Posters is full of happy workers, idealistic students, and slogans like “Let’s achieve heroic exploits and miracles!” More quirky and bohemian, though still occasionally political, are the pop-culture appropriations in Modern Dog: 20 Years of Poster Art, which profiles a Seattle design studio that has flourished during the recent resurgence of custom-made ads for rock concerts. Stretching out a bit, Icons of Graphic Design, showcases not only landmark posters but the typefaces, book covers and even paper-money designs that were most influential in the last century. While you’re unlikely to find any of the paintings in Mexican Pulp Art there, that doesn’t mean these illustrations for old dimestore novels aren’t a kitschy treat — full of lurid supernatural visions and racy intrigue. Finally, graphic design superstar Chip Kidd has written a sequel to his novel The Cheese Monkeys titled The Learners — it’s the only book on this list with no pictures, but as you’d expect it boasts an awfully intriguing cover design.

Back in the ’90s, offbeat indie-rock heroes They Might Be Giants put a series of mini-songs called “Fingertips” on their album Apollo 18. Many of them were little more than a single phrase, adorned with a musical treatment that was just strange enough to lodge them permanently in your head. They’ve applied a bit of that technique to their two recent addictive kids’ records, Here Come the 123s and Here Come the ABCs; the musical versions of these were mentioned here a while back, but recent versions pack each CD with a must-have bonus — a DVD in which the little learning tunes are accompanied by animated films and introduced by adorable sock-puppet versions of the bandmates John and John. Elsewhere in the DVD aisle are three more restrained pleasures for youngsters, short movies from the ’50s and ’60s that have become such classic fables that one recently inspired a critically praised feature-length remake. Each centers on one object of a child’s devotion: The Red Balloon (the one that was remade) is self-explanatory; White Mane is about a beautiful horse; and Paddle to the Sea is about a little canoe and rider, carved out of wood, who make their way from the Canadian mountains to the ocean, encountering everything from frogs to wildfire along the way. Kids who haven’t had enough of the alphabet after They Might Be Giants’ version should pick up The Alphabet from A to Y with Bonus Letter Z!, another curious celebrity effort. Here, comedian Steve Martin pens memorable alliterative rhymes for each letter, while New Yorker cartoonist Roz Chast does illustrations for each. Book-lovers on the other side of the preschool/high school continuum, meanwhile — and maybe their parents — should hunt down The Film Club, the nonfiction account of what happened when a novelist made an unusual deal with his teenaged son. He would let the boy drop out of school, which he hated, on one condition: He had to watch three movies a week, ones Dad chose, and be available to discuss them afterward.

For many, the word “vacation” and the thought of lying on a pristine beach taking it easy don’t go together at all. Given how many hours we spend at our computers, sitting in offices where perhaps the most exciting thing that can happen is the arrival of a box of Krispy Kreme doughnuts, is it any wonder we yearn for the jaw-dropping sights and pulse-quickening adventures of the great outdoors? If you dream of using your senses as they were meant to be used and maybe even seeing great creatures in the wild, you need to visit Big Animals Photography Expeditions. Started by photographer Amos Nachoum, whose explorations have been featured in National Geographic and on the Discovery Channel, this travel company limits the number of guests to give each participant the chance to move about and take pictures (under Nachoum’s expert tutelage, if desired) and, most important, to leave the wildlife and their habitat undisturbed: “Our goal is to see, photograph and interact with the most imposing inhabitants of the animal kingdom, and to observe special behavior such as predation, migration, nursing, and parenting.” Choose from scuba diving and wildlife adventures in Antarctica ($9,950 and up, plus airfare); a once-a-year month-long expedition to Africa, which includes an encounter with the great white and the whale shark, in addition to the traditional “big five” (lions, leopards, cheetahs, rhinos and elephants) for $40K plus airfare: or witness a 1,000-mile sardine run over the Wild Coast (east coast) of South Africa ($5,900, plus airfare). Even if you aren’t a photographer or long-time diver, you are welcome. All you need, says Nachoum, is a passion for nature, the spirit of adventure and a desire to step beyond the typical experiences offered by the usual travel agency. Large sums of disposable income are also helpful. If you go, we suggest taking a pair of focus-free Bushnell binoculars (sale price: $59 to $83) because you don’t want to waste a second focusing. An excellent photography book to get you ready for the trip is The New Complete Guide to Wildlife Photography: How to Get Close and Capture Animals on Film.

About the time Gilda Radner spoofed Barbara Walters on Saturday Night Live, the best-paid and most famous woman in broadcast television was making an unprecedented $1 million annual salary, a fraction of the reported $12 million a year she would eventually earn co-hosting 20/20. Walters, whose first big assignment was to accompany then-first lady Jacqueline Kennedy to India and Pakistan, has had, to say the least, a colorful life in television. She has been hostess for more than ten years at The View, where she reportedly had run-ins with former hosts Star Jones and Rosie O’ Donnell. She has interviewed every U.S. president since Richard Nixon, and she has made many of her guests cry, even when she hasn’t asked them if they were a tree, what kind of tree they’d be. Known for her trademark, probing-yet-casual interviewing style with the famous and powerful, Walters’ own private life off camera has come in and out of view until now. We are hoping that in her memoir Audition, to be published May 6, she finally gives us her unfiltered view. If it’s a tell-all, will we learn how she felt when the public and even her co-anchor Harry Reasoner were skeptical about a woman anchoring the evening news? (Sound familiar, Katie Couric?) How did she manage to get an exclusive in 1999 with former White House intern and Bill Clinton paramour Monica Lewinsky, which became a two–hour special that made broadcasting history as the highest-rated news program ever broadcast on a single network? Her other notable interviews range from controversial figure Jack Kevorkian to political leader Fidel Castro. The table of contents and this excerpt suggest the book will deliver. It will be juicy. It may become our favorite summer dish. If nothing else, it k will be a welcome addition to the outrageously small number of quality memoirs by or biographies of female broadcast news personalities.