Tennessee Books

It was difficult to find the right textbook since most did not come with a picture. This merchant did provide an image of the book and that makes the process soooo... much easier. Nice book, exactly what I needed.

James Thor Whitehead is a young boy living in Carter County, Tennessee and growing up with his family's tradition of storytelling. All his life, he has listened to this father's tales about the famous tiger that roams the mountains and valleys of East Tennessee. Thor believes that these stories are true and fears that this legendary beast will one day hunt him down and eat him. Eventually Thor learns of the real "Tennessee Tiger" who was legendary for his killing of 99 bears in his lifetime and the sparing of the 100th bear's life. A combination of folklore and mythology make this book a must. This book should be enjoyed by children of all ages and adults alike. It is especially meaningful when read together as a family. My child enjoys hearing this story over and over again. The colorful pictures are quite unique and very well done. I highly recommend this book!!

This book really illustrates what the Tennessee Titans accomplished in such a short amount of time in their first season in Nashville. The photographs bring back lots of great memories, and brings a smile to my face every time I open it. There's lots more photographs than text, but those photos say it all.

My favorite section is on the Music City Miracle, of course. I still get chills when I look at the frame by frame photographs of that historic play. Incredible! Go Titans!!

I visit Tennessee in the Spring to fish the Park and the tailwaters, and Ian's book has been my sole guide to these waters since its publication. It covers a wide, wide range of rivers and streams, and delivers enough information to get you on the water with a reasonable idea about what's about to happen.

A nice touch is Rutter's listing of alternative fisheries (and drive times); should you arrive at a tailwater and discover the water release schedule has been altered, leaving you with an unfishable mess.

Rutter certainly knows these fisheries like the back of his hand (he's the top guide in the area, and lives on the edge of the Great Smoky Mountains National Park), and manages to impart a lot of information very quickly.

My only real complaint is that a longer book might be a bit more useful - in places, I'd love to have more information, though the somewhat transient nature of the tailwater fisheries (they live and die based on TVA flow schedules, which can change on a whim) and rapid development around some of the tailwaters (the Clinch being a prime example) would make it difficult to say much with any real precision.

A great & useful guide book.

It's been a while since I read such nice, well written stories. They were easy to read and made me wonder about issues like being an organ donor and how to trust after having endured a broken heart. It's my first book by this author and I'll be looking for more of her books to buy.

This is one of the most informative books I've ever read. Harold Bloom takes you through, close to every piece of literature ever written by Williams, and tears it apart piece by piece, allowing the reader to get to the essence of the writing, and also get some insight from another person. I think it to be very refreshing to find such a tacctful book on literary criticism. It's a fabulous book that I would recommend to anyone in a heartbeat!

A Streetcar Named Desire, by Tennessee Williams is one of the best plays that I have read in years. First adapted to film in 1951, by Oscar Saul. I must recommend this play to all theatre directors out there and say that this would be a very large hit.

Once again, I say that A Streetcar named desire is one of the best plays I have read.

It's a crime this book is so little known even by admirers of Tennessee Williams. Although published by an academic publishers, it's a straightforward biography, deeply researched and printed on excellent paper stock with many rare photographs. Mr. Williams' sad personal decline and personal shortcomings are not ignored but this clear-eyed book also celebrates the genius that he was. This is one of the best written accounts on the greatest playwright America has ever produced.

This is an excellent account of women's contributions to not only Tennessee History, but also US History. I have heard the author speak and it was an experience everyone should have. I have read her novels, they are excellent, as well. Every Tennessean should read this book by one of Tennessee's greatest historians. It could be used in classrooms to supplement history and literature texts. An excellent source for Women's History Month. I highly recommend any book by this author.

President Franklin Roosevelt, confronted with the hardship of millions of unemployed Americans and radical political ideas blossoming around the world, put millions of unemployed Americans to work building bridges, roads, buildings and other elements of America's infrastructure. These fine work projects are seen across America and represent a hard period in American history, and a period of hope and achievement.

I found this H-Net review of this book on the Internet.

"Carroll Van West. Tennessee's New Deal Landscape: A Guidebook.
Reviewed by Edward Salo, Geo-Marine, Inc.
Published by H-Tennessee (September, 2002)

"Creating a Modern Tennessee through the New Deal
When most people think of the New Deal's impact on Tennessee, the concrete dams of the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) are the image that comes to mind. However, like many states, Tennessee's public landscape was drastically affected in other ways by a variety of New Deal projects. In Tennessee's New Deal Landscape, Dr. Carroll Van West, project director for the Center for Historic Preservation, Middle Tennessee State University, examines over 250 of Tennessee's historic sites constructed during the New Deal and uses that information to catalogue how Depression-era federal government work changed the built environment of the state. West's book serves both as a heritage tourism guidebook and as a scholarly work. It also succeeds in illustrating how "New Deal agencies transformed the state's public landscape, leaving in their wake the infrastructure for the emergence of a modern--and different--Tennessee" (p. xii).

"Students of Tennessee's cultural landscapes and historic preservation will be familiar with West's earlier scholarship. Because of his work at the Center for Historic Preservation, West has either written about or is familiar with most of the New Deal historic properties in the state. His previous book, Tennessee's Historic Landscapes, is the definitive study on the different historic landscapes across the state. West's new contribution focuses exclusively on the historic properties that were constructed during the New Deal era in Tennessee. He has mined both primary and secondary sources on Tennessee's New Deal experience, including TVA records, the WPA guidebook on Tennessee, cultural resource reports, and National Register of Historic Properties nominations to produce a similarly authoritative examination of the state during the 1930s.

"In his first chapter, West presents a short thematic history of the New Deal, identifying the ten major New Deal agencies that worked in Tennessee. Unlike his previous book, which looked at the state's regions, he divides New Deal Landscapes into chapters based on the resource's property type. The next seven chapters include discussions of state offices and county courthouses; federal courthouses and post offices; community buildings and institutions; schools; housing; parks, memorials, and museums; and infrastructure. Each chapter contains a short narrative focusing on political, cultural, and social patterns that influenced the resources, as well as individual descriptions of other examples across the state, organized alphabetically by county. By not designating the properties as belonging to West, Middle, and East Tennessee, West makes his information accessible to those unfamiliar with Tennessee's traditional geographic divisions. A bibliographical essay also directs readers to important sources for further research.

"West makes it clear in his preface that the book is not comprehensive. The examples he uses are fairly divided between the rural and urban sections of the state. Many of the properties discussed in the chapters are representative and are not the only examples in the state. The identification and description of New Deal property types, however, is one of the book's strengths, making it easier for local historians to examine Depression-era landscape and distinguish significant buildings.

"The examples that West uses illustrate two interpretations of the New Deal in Tennessee: construction and destruction. Although many projects created new buildings, some, such as the TVA dams, also destroyed rural areas and displaced people from their traditional homes. Additionally, the construction of TVA lakes disrupted rural life, while also laying the groundwork for Tennessee's economic growth during World War II and the Cold War. This dichotomy shaped many Tennesseans' attitude toward the federal government both during and after the New Deal years.

"Although the book's only problems are cosmetic in nature, a few changes would have helped the reader. First, all of the pictures in the book are modern, but many readers would appreciate historic views of some of the buildings. Additionally, sidebars with brief descriptions of architectural elements or styles (for example, WPA Moderne style) would have made the book more accessible to laymen. Also, with the growing interest in environmental history, West's discussion of the creation of state parks and soil conservation only begs for more study.

"The study of New Deal landscape has bloomed during the 1990s. Many state historic preservation offices have developed New Deal theme studies to assist in placing 1930s properties on the National Register of Historic Places. Although these theme studies are helpful for historic preservation planning, they are not easily accessible to the public. Public historians should use West's book as an example on how better to communicate historic landscapes to the general public. The book takes "gray literature" and presents it in a manner that is useful. The framework that West has developed also lends itself to other possible historic themes, such as railroads, military, agriculture, industrial, and ethnic landscapes. This book should be read by public historians not only for the content but also for the methodology."