Tennessee Books

The cookbook is full of wonderful basic recipes for all types of dishes. It also includes several nice delicacies for entertaining, special dinners, etc. I have grown up in the South and find this is a great guide to keep me in touch with my roots and the great meals we shared. The book is well written and wonderfully illustrated with pencil sketched country scenes. Many recipes are personalized with comments from the provider that give it great personality without taking away from its main objective; Great Food. My hats off to the editors and all of the contributors!!

I became hooked on Sister Fidelma stories because of the short stories I'd read in other mystery collections. I have since become a big fan of the novels, as well, but I would still have to say that the short stories are some of the best. This is an excellent collection - I had a hard time putting it down to do mundane things like eat, shower, etc.

As Middle Tennessee transplant and new cyclist I was reluctant to get out of my neighborhood till reading this book. The format was clear and I could venture out without risking getting totally lost or on some super dangerous roadway. The commentary that accompanies each route lends interest to the rides and the numerous hints and guides for more information in the back were extremely helpful. This book is worth reading even for an experienced cycling native Nashvillian.

I really dug this book. It looks great on my coffee table at work and everyone always picks it up. I also like "A Tailgater's Guide To SEC Football." It's a good one too.
I highly recommend both titles.

Go Vols!

"The Author:
Minrose C. Gwin is assistant professor of English at Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University."

"Considering fictional characters and autobiographical reflections of female experience, Minrose C. Gwin explores the volatile, often violent connection between black and white women of the Old South.
She shows that their relationship in American literature offers a paradigm of the Southern racial experience---its antipathy and guilt on the one hand, its very real bonding through common suffering on the other.

Gwin's study encompasses a wide range of books, including abolitionist and proslavery fiction of the midnineteenth century, women's slave narratives and journals, and modern fictional treatments of Southern slavery by Faulkner, Cather, and Margaret Walker.
She analyzes such diverse works as Mary Chesnut's Civil War and Harriet Jacob's Incidents in the Life of a Slave, Girl.
Black and white Southern women in modern fiction, Gwin suggests, come to represent a terrible duality in human nature.

Her pioneering interpretation enable us to understand the Southern past more fully, to identify
NEW CRITICAL RELATIONSHIPS BETWEEN WORKS OF LITERATURE, AND TO DISCERN FRESH IMPLICATIONS OF FEMALE EXPERIENCE."

"Also of Interest---
Background in Tennessee
Evelyn Scott
Tennesseana Editions
324 pages

Stories from Tennessee
Edited by Linda Burton
432 pages

Tennessee Writers
Thomas Daniel Young
Tennessee Three Star Series
132 pages Illustrations"

[from the book of the front and back flap]

Hunter is a cop's cop. He tells it like it is, but with compassion and humanity. This book made me laugh, it made me think, and it made me see what being a police officer in the real world is really like. I love Hunter's sense of humor and his high ethical and moral standards.

A double shot of a biography on whiskey magnate Jack Daniel with hard-work and determination as the foundation to his life and principles.
Born in the mid-1800's and orphaned at the age of fifteen, JD immediately found himself working in a local Tennessee distillery manufacturing some of the highest quality spirits in the region from men who were the best in the business. He was known as the boy distiller.
In his early twenties, he had the opportunity to partnership with his mentor and the rest as they say is history.
It was not easy though. For decades he battled revenuers, the government, corrupt officials, temperance groups and later the prohibition movement. Even with these many adversities throughout his life, philanthropy was his middle name.
Peter Krass has uncorked an imbibing read of a unique man and the times in which he lived.

At twelve years old, Jack Riggs was a bully who on his first day at a new school beat up Mark who later became his best friend. Living with an alcoholic father toughened him up even as it made him afraid to go home. He loved history and spent much time dreaming about living in nineteenth century Tennessee. One day he and Mark were exploring THE NEW CUT, a man made deep gouge in Brian's Creek, when eight years old Billy, whose mother had the New Cut created starts following them. Suddenly the Cut seems to keep going on and on.

When they leave the gorge they find a cabin without electricity or other amenities and the family who lived there gave them food and shelter that they were supposed to "pay" for by doing chores. Mark and Jason run away from them but are captured by the land pirates and forced to bait a flat boat into an ambush that turned into a massacre. The pirates are the infamous Pikes and their minions, a ruthless group of cannibal murderers. Billy, who got separated from them, meets an Indian Willawick wearing Nikes. The boys try to figure out how to get the Indian to take them out of 1811 and back home but first Jason and Mark have to find a way out of the cave that is the pirate's headquarters which is surrounded by a blood thirsty militia.

This time travel fantasy is also a coming of age tale in which the protagonists realize that history is romanticized and reality is more gritty, dangerous and ugly. Jason learns how to make decisions for his little group and to have more tolerance for people, especially those that don't want to kill him. The authors have written a delightful work that will appeal to young adults as much as the older crowd.

Harriet Klausner

Just the title provides food for thought: Blue Ridge 2020, An Owner's Manual, reminds us that the public has a responsibility for effective stewardship of the public lands in the Blue Ridge. I also like the play on words of 2020--hindsight is 20/20, and if we don't take a hard, clear look at what is happening to the ecology of the Blue Ridge and work hard to improve it, we will have deep regrets by the year 2020. The human scale of twenty years is very effective. I'm 31--what kind of Blue Ridge will I experience at 51? As a local environmental activist in the Page Valley, I find this book is a tremendously useful and motivating resource. In one book, Steve Nash provides an overview of specific problems and practical solutions. His writing style is clear and accessible. If you care about the health about the Blue Ridge or want up to date information about the quality of air and water in the mountains, this is a book you need to read. This is one of the best "state of the ecology" books I've read, and it is particularly useful for its regional approach.

A must for wildlife watchers! This small but impressive book gives us behind the scenes info about how various species were brought back from near extinction in Tennessee to large populations - deer and turkey are two marvelous examples. Markham, via interviews, makes even the failed effort to bring back the red-cockaded woodpecker an interesting story. Many little known facts appear about species we may think we know - the book is worth it just for that. And Markham has done a wonderful job of writing - try it, you'll be facinated!