Tennessee Books

Ms. Capps' book includes paintings of the remaining Rock City Barns that dot the Tennessee landscape as well as interviews with owners, local stories, and maps to these landmarks that seem to disappear with saddening regularity. If dilapidated barns are your idea of art, you'll spend a lot of time pulling this book down and paging through it.
(See www.ohiobarns.com for a section with photos of and directions to the Rock City Barns that remain around the US.)

This book has marvelous illustrations, a dense historical introduction, and a series of travellers' essays that have not been published for over a hundred years. The book will be useful for Appalachian studies scholars, historians of the regions, and people who are just interested in how the Appalachians have changed over time.

Jeff Powers-Beck

By employing a non-traditional, storytelling technique making use of court records and transcriptions of taped interviews, Thomas Burton has told a documentary-like tale of people whose lives are as confusing and bizarre as any that Flannery O'Conner's fiction could have created. Glenn Summerford, a serpent-handling, Holiness preacher was accused of attempted murder, convicted, and sentenced to ninety-nine years in prison. His wife Darlene alleged that he forced her at gunpoint, while he was in a drunken rage, to put her hand into a box of poisonous snakes that Glenn kept at home for use in his church services. She was, according to medical attendants, bitten and hospitalized, but "the truth" of the matter is clouded from the outset. Some of those interviewed claim the whole court procedure was rigged in an attempt to rid Jackson County, Alabama, of Summerford and the practices of his congregation -- which church members sincerely believe is a way for them to show their obedience to the Word of God. Glenn's two wives, as well as his children by both women, all have differing accounts of what could have happened -- and for the motives of those involved.
No matter what the reality of the situation, Burton has tried to unravel, as Robert Browning did with his verse monologues in The Ring and the Book, the immensely complicated, and ultimately unfathomable mess that life can be for all of us, and the writer has done so in a highly entertaining and readable fashion.--Michael Davenport

Seven: The National Championship Teams of the Tennessee Lady Vols

This was a great book on the history of the Tennessee Lady Vol's National Championships 1-7.
A detailed look at some of the greatest players to ever play at Tennessee.
A detailed account of what it's like to play for the Greatest coach in college basketball history. Who made Women's basketball what it is today,
Pat Summitt

Sevier County is a fast growing county in Tennessee, still quite rural and hard to get reliable information about real estate without going to dozens of different places. This book condensed it all into a good read. The loan company official gave me a copy and I recommend it to anyone looking for property in Tennesseee

This 187 page book contains the names of Sevier Countians in the 1830 and 1840 federal censuses, the 1814 (a partial list of one company), and the 1837 and 1838 tax lists for Sevier County. The tax lists contain person's name, number of acres owned, white polls, slaves, town lots, etc. by civil district. The names of over 2,100 Sevier Countians are included. This book is particularly important because the Sevier County courthouse fire in March 1856 destroyed most of the early Sevier County records.

This 176 page book contains abstracts of all surveys done to obtain land grants in Sevier County from the State of Tennessee between 1824 and 1894. The surveys were abstracted from microfilm of the early Surveyor Books (1824-1894), one of the few early records that survived the Sevier County courthouse fire of March 1856. Each abstract contains the person for whom the survey was made, number of acres, general location of land, neighbors, entry number, date of entry, and date of survey. The names of over 3,800 Sevier Countians are included, those who had surveys done, their neighbors, and the chain carriers, usually family members or neighbors, who assisted the surveyor. This is an important resource for Sevier County genealogists.

This is an outstanding resource for Sevier County genealogists. It contains abstracts of all the land grants issued by the State of Tennessee directly from the 34 rolls of microfilm of original land grants. It includes the first grants issued in 1806-7 called the occupancy grants, because the grantees were already occupying their land, possibly for several years. Each abstract contains in addition to grantee, number of acres, general location of land and neighbors. The names of over 3,500 Sevier Countains are listed in the index. This book is particularly important because the Sevier County courthouse fire in March 1856 destroyed most of the early Sevier County records.

For two weeks in July of each year, on the rural Tennessee campus of Sewanee, The University of the South, the Sewanee Writers' Conference meets to encourage"creative writing and creative writers." The Conference has been meeting every year since 1989 when it's founder, poet Wyatt Prunty, used a donation from Tennessee William's estate to establish a location for writers to gather and practice their craft in a place known for its "remoteness without cultural dislocation." Sewanee Writers on Writing is a collection of 14 "Craft Lectures" selected from the first ten conferences and offers selections by playwrights, poets and fiction writers. Some of the contributors include Russell Banks, Alice McDermott, Ernest J. Gaines, Horton Foote and Marsh Norman. These are world class writers including Pulitzer Prize winners as well as a host of other national awards. This collection is a must for writers, professional or amateur, who are interested in cultivating the art and craft of writing. The insights, suggestions and experiences of these masters of the written word are as inspiring as they are informative. Tennessee Williams truly gave a gift that keeps on giving. A real literary treasure from some of the best in the business.

Forrest looks like a typical small Southern town; however, below the surface in the Tennessee town, racial tension waits for the incident to explode. One night after planning and casing a house where a respected black woman lives, white males burst in to rob it. They expected the elderly female "Black Mama" to be at church as she always is, but instead she was home. The leader of the invaders Ronny Solomon rapes her before shooting her.

Miraculously she lives and her livid grandson police detective Walter Robinson wants to know how close his peers are o catching the culprits. All local blacks decry the crime, but Walter's nephew neighborhood druglord Cebo wants white blood to flow especially those who committed the obscenity. He informs the police that if the SOBs are not in custody within forty-eight hours a cop will die; another will die every forty-eight hours afterward until there are no police or the perps are caught. The town is a powder keg with only Walter able to keep the fuse from igniting, but he sympathizes with his nephew as this is his beloved grandma.

It does not take a lot of words to describe the town where blacks see no way out of poverty that engulfs communities. In some way James E. Cherry's vivid description of a town without pity feels somewhat 1960s yet the author makes the case that poverty is the modern day de facto racism. Walter is a good person and cop as he tries to glide above the racial divide even as he understands how many whites look down at blacks; he vents his frustration on his wife. However this time he cannot ignore the incident nor does he truly want too. How he acts will determine whether this town burns down in a Forrest fire or not as James E. Cherry provides a strong thriller that plays out on two levels: town-wide and character poignancy.

Harriet Klausner