Tennessee Books

"The best photographic book of the Grand Ole Opry. A must have for the country music lover."

This wonderful photojournal is for the reader who wishes to follow along in a photo album, having a good time remembering the days of the "true" country sound, belted out by some great country artists. No make-up artists for these pictures, shown just as it really happened, on and off the stage, with many of the people you grew to love on the radio and TV. Many scenes from the dressing rooms as they rehearsed, and you can even see the sweat on their brows in some photographs, for the Ryman did not have AC. This is a great collector's edition, and every fan of the true country sound will find it a delightful addition to their library.
I highly recommend this wonderful book. I worked there during these years, as an usherette, and it is just like it looked when it happened.
The longest aired radio program in the world spent many years in this wonderful old tabernacle. ENJOY!
Nancy Turner Brown

This book collects most of the written material available and includes actual person-to-person contact to document the Primitive Baptist Universalist church in Central Appalachia. Well-researched and well-written, this book describes a religious group that is remarkable for its openness and extreme forgiveness in a region traditionally viewed as fundamentalist, crude, and harsh. Readers must wade through excessive detail at times but if they persevere, the detail helps to color in the shades of this unique group.

In the Hands of a Happy God is a superb introduction to a kinder view of religion and especially of the doctrine of atonement. Dr. Dorgan, in an easy-to-read but quite scholarly way, shows how the notion of universal salvation enlivens a religious view that can be rather dreadful. He shows how it works in the very real lives of people who live in the Appalachian culture.

This is a must-read for anyone who has an interest in culture and religion.

Book in great condition and the price saved me lots of money. This is a required textbook for many Theatre Arts programs around the country.

I am lucky enough to know one of the authors, and have been able to study this book in his class. I loved the class, and loved the book.

In Keep Swinging, Jay Myers tells a story that everyone aspiring to be an entrepreneur should read. With gripping detail, he describes the real life challenges that can (and often do) face those who step up to the plate in business, and the essential qualities required to overcome them. A home run!


Bill Catlette
co-author, Contented Cows MOOve Faster

"Author Jay Myers uses a conversational tone to detail his personal experience as an entrepreneur in his new book Keep Swinging: An Entrepreneur's Story of Overcoming Adversity and Achieving Small Business Success

Keep Swinging is a little different than most books on this topic because Myers shies away from explaining all of his good decisions and instead focuses on some of the mistakes he has made and the pitfalls he has faced. Stories of a poor business plan, a misguided buyout, and an embezzlement crisis all blend together to create a compelling tale that reads more like a fiction book.

At the same time, Keep Swinging offers solid business lessons and advice that any entrepreneurs could put to good use. Myers also touches on subjects like home life, family support, continuing education, and community involvement.

The book is only 157 pages, but it includes a lot of valuable information and entertainment value to boot. I would highly recommend Keep Swinging to any entrepreneur who wants to read about both the highs and lows of owning a business."
- Karen Schweitzer,
Your Guide to Business School.

The book can be read by any level of readers, may be considered a initiator for the junior logistics managers, while senior managers may use it to update their knowledge with the recent developments in logistics. The book gives good inside about establishing the logistics criteria (K.P.I.s) as well as being a good reference for researchers. It has sufficient amount of statistical data supporting the information provided and the results are integrated with the subjects neatly. I have enjoyed reading it, and found it quite useful for my research and company project.

The book can be read by any level of readers, may be considered a initiator for the junior logistics managers, while senior managers may use it to update their knowledge with the recent developments in logistics. The book gives good inside about establishing the logistics criteria (K.P.I.s) as well as being a good reference for researchers. It has sufficient amount of statistical data supporting the information provided and the results are integrated with the subjects neatly. I have enjoyed reading it, and found it quite useful for my research and company project.

This book is outstanding. A collection of stories, it reads more like a novel. Ruth, who might be referred to as the main character, is a survivor. But what makes her different, what makes her compelling, is the complexity of her responses to pain. Unwilling to let those who hurt her control her, she takes her own pain hostage, showing it, as it were, who is in charge.

These stories are not about victimization; they are about the high price of rejecting the idea of victimization. Ruth gets hurt, yes. But her responses to pain are the responses of an organism. Her survival -- and indeed this is precisely what it is -- is survival in the most Darwinian terms: Ruth survives by adapting -- not by running away.

There is triumph here, redemption in Ruth's fear of fear. This book is not so much a book to be read as a book to keep on reading.

Sylvia Foley's Life in the Air Ocean is a quick read in that it grabs you and won't let go. But layered and exact observations about the inner life and its consequent actions reward the careful reader. Her precise, beautiful writing captures the moments across years that make up a family history -- not the public one, but a private, under-the-skin history.

Another excellent work by Jack Neely

As a regular reader of "Colonel" Jack Neely in MetroPulse (Knoxville's alternative newspaper) and one who appreciated his previous volumes, Knoxville's Secret History I and II, I eagerly awaited this book. If you are interested in East Tennessee history and the people who made it--"Parson" Brownlow, Paul Y. Anderson, Lloyd Branson, the McClungs, General William Caswell, Joseph Mabry, Captain William Rule, Thomas O'Conner, U.S. Supreme Court Justice Edward T. Sanford, Calvin Johnson, the Bethel Cemetery, blues singer and composer Ida Cox, James Agee's father, Frances Hodgson Burnett's mother and many others--you need this book. Many of the gravesites are in Knoxville's Old Gray Cemetery. Take this book and visit the cemetery and revisit East Tennessee History and those who made it. The photographs are also outstanding! Highly recommended!

The gritty realism and shattered lives of the characters here make this an outstanding debut novel. Henry delves deep into these mundane lives, slowly unearthing the humanity and complexity in characters exhausted by their day-to-day doldrums. This blue-collar odd-couple romance has zero by way of sap or senitment and was a genuine pleasure to read.

This is a great book in the tradition of Hardy, Zola, Norris and Dreiser. Alcoholism, adultery, violence and dialogue worthy of Chandler make this book a must-read for anyone interested in the American working-class experience. The power of the unspoken and even the unsayable is so strong between all these characters, but especially the two lead characters, who struggle under major personal burdens without whining about them. Reminds me of Cather, but also Carver, although a different milieu here. The only novel I've ever read where the protagonist in tough times is a woman working in a factory. No sugary ending -- you really wonder whether trouble is not as much ahead of these two as it was behind. Terrific piece of American realism, get it and read it.

Although I sometimes wonder how much of the book is fiction, I think the book is an incredible blend of Rubenstein's personal life with his public career. I literally could not put the book down. The book allowed me to put a personal life with the public figure and recordings that I have of him.

Rubenstein has a very flowing, easy-to-read writing style and includes details that made me feel like I actually met him and the people he knew. Like all great autobiographies that I read, this one made me want to know what happened to some of the people he met.

I was **very** disappointed when I finished the book and yearned for more information about his life. It was only when I came across the title on Amazon.com that I found he wrote another autobiography. I can't wait to buy it.

I first read the book when I was in college in about 1974. I couldn't put the book down. At the time Rubenstein was the greatest in my mind. I later bought a copy of the book at a used book store in Sonoma Valley.

Terrific -- and it sounds like it really was written by Arthur (Artur?) himself. It's almost diary-like in its detail, and everything is fascinating. We get a lot of juicy personal stuff, including love-life stuff and, on the other side of the coin, his young failed attempt at suicide. My own favorite part of the book is his very detailed reminiscence of the piano competition that he entered, and LOST; what's interesting is how this great, beloved, infinitely-accomplished pianist and man-of-the-world apparently never lost his hurt and bitterness over this stupid competition -- kind of like if Derek Jeter or Barry Bonds went on and on about the time they got shafted by an umpire in Little League. I don't mean this as a criticism of him; if anything, the opposite -- it's an example of how much he was just like the rest of us, which probably was a big part of why we loved him so much.

I just finished the book, and I enjoyed it very much. I live near the Smokies, and I am a licensed pilot, so the topic naturally appealed to me. The stories are broken down by decades, then individual incidents, so you can read it in short snippets if time is a premium.

Most of all, the book confirms what pilots who study aircraft crashes should already know. Continued VFR flight into IMC (Instrument Meteorological Conditions) is a killer. The stories of the searches are real life adventures with real life endings. Sometimes they turned out well, other times, not so well. Nevertheless, each incident has its own story, and they are all compelling. Some were even amusing.

This will be a very enjoyable book for anyone interested in aviation, accident investigation (and prevention!) or an interest in the Smoky Mountains

As the author of Mayday! Mayday! I wanted to give pilots a warning regarding safety flying over the Smokies. We also wanted to offer the book as a text for SAR teams and thirdly to present this small slice of Smoky Mtn. history.