Melville Clark’s multifaceted musical legacy to Syracuse gets star treatment in a new book

Harpist Linda Pembroke Kaiser didn’t intend to write a book when she began two decades of research on Syracuse musician Melville A. Clark (1883-1953). But this man of many hats (and many harps)—former head of the 150-year-old family-owned Clark Music Company, inventor of the Clark Irish harp, and the first president of Syracuse’s first symphony orchestra—inspired Kaiser to don a new hat of her own. 

the family court system

By Lorraine Smorol

Alec Baldwin is one angry dude. You can almost see the steam rising from the pages of his book A Promise to Ourselves: A Journey Through Fatherhood and Divorce (St. Martin’s Press, New York City; 224 pages; $24.95/hardcover), a documentation of his nasty divorce from actress Kim Basinger, with all the resulting fallout and backlash.

Two new coffee-table photo books

will put readers in an Empire State of mind

By Molly English-Bowers

That was last fall, and after an intense, six-week, full-time blitz, which included a five-day trip to New York City (nice work if you can get it!), Schneider turned over her manuscript for New York: Yesterday & Today. This is a perfect coffee-table book: You can easily get through a chapter that focuses on a geographic region of the state, or a city, in one sitting.