Tennessee Handbook: Including Nashville, Memphis, the Great Smoky Mountains and Nutbush (1997) [Paperback]

Jeff Bradley (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: March 1997 | Series: 1997

Bradley, a Tennessee native, explores the mu sic capitals of Memphis and Nashville and small towns throug hout the state. He explains how to avoid the crowds in the G reat Smoky Mountains National Park, and other useful travel tips. '

Editorial Reviews

Review

"Bradley provides mountains of information about small-town Tennessee...it's the little tidbits that makes this such a fun read".

-- Memphis Magazine --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

About the Author

Jeff Bradley went off to the University of Tennessee intent on becoming a broadcaster, but a few weeks convinced him to switch to journalism. He became a stringer for The New York Times, and this led to an offer to teach writing to Harvard freshmen. Bradley and wife decamped to Massachusetts. While privately decrying the attitudes that Harvardians held toward Southerners, Bradley and two other Tennesseans never passed up a chance to hijack dinner parties with an endless repertoire of snake stories, tales of weird relatives, and Baptist gospel disk jockeys. It finally dawned on Bradley that, short of loading up outlanders in buses and giving them personal tours of Tennessee, the best way of explaining this remarkable state to infidels was to write a book about it. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Product Details

• Paperback: 368 pages
• Publisher: Moon Travel Handbooks (March 1997)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1566910439
• ISBN-13: 978-1566910439
• Product Dimensions: 7.4 x 5.1 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 15.2 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (8 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #863,489 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #61 in Books > Travel > United States > States > Tennessee

More About the Author

Discover books, learn about writers, read author blogs, and more.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

17 of 17 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars High Expectations Exceeded, February 20, 2002

By 

Hap Eliason (Nashville, TN United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Moon Handbooks: Tennessee: Including Nashville, Memphis, the Great Smoky Mountains, and Nutbush (3rd Edition) (Paperback)

I have the first edition of this book, and I've raved about it to my circle of friends. I heard this third edition was vastly improved, and I doubted this, but figured I couold always give it as a gift.
This book is going nowhere but to a choice space in my book shelf!
It covers more material, has a format which invites digging deeper into a topic at hand, highlights special topics, has a clearer type face, and is simply loaded with URL's for further cyber digging. I got out my Tennessee Atlas and Gazetteer by Delorme mapping, a topo coverage of Tennesee, my state, and put a "mark" by all the towns and villages Mr. Bradley covered. Not a page without copious markings. What a living history exprience.

He begins in the East as our state did, moves west, and brings out information about people, about the locale, gives historic facts and loads of human interest materal. He covers the Civil War as it progresses in various locations and is in fact more historical than a course or two I've had in Higher Eduction. And READABLE!! His wry, delightful humor graces most every entry. And as you follow this through the topo maps you SEE how history unfolds. Now I know where the Cumberland Gap is, I know where the mysterious Melungeons 'are', I've followed the tragic trail of tears, I know where to find barbeque all across Tennessee etc etc. I know where that terrific meteorite hit Tennessee, where biggie dinosaur fossils are found etc. .
What a book! What a marvelous travel companion, what a history of my state. And I have a store house of "stories and tales" I'll make good use of.
If you have an interest in Tennessee and can get only one book: THIS is it! Hands down. I'm grateful to Mr Bradley for doing it.
Hap Eliason

13 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Outstanding Tennessee Guidebook, November 2, 2005

By 

Scott Williams (Wausau, WI USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Moon Handbooks Tennessee (Paperback)

We recently completed a trip to Eastern Tennessee and brought along several guidebooks. After a few days, it became apparent that one guidebook was head and shoulders above the others: Moon Handbooks Tennessee by Jeff Bradley. It is both comprehensive and concise. It contains lots of local color without drowning in it. And it is spot on in its evaluation of sights. (We didn't have any occasion to use it for lodging or food.)

Full credit to Jeff Bradley for a writing syle that is one of the best in the business. He keeps things lively without neglecting the basic facts that need to be conveyed. In almost every instance his entries were more interesting and more complete than other guidebooks, while being about the same total number of words. He seems to know just when to insert a clever turn of phrase or an offbeat tidbit while still writing in a very direct style.

The book covers all of Tennessee. It starts with general information about the state's natural history, settlement history, and culture. It then covers each region of the state. He does a good job of conveying which sights are most worth seeing in each area without neglecting second tier sights. He weaves together a complete tapestry that puts everything in the larger context of the region and the state. Throughout, there is a pervasive sense of the joy of travel in this interesting state. This guidebook is the real McCoy!

13 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Mark Twain Lives!, April 20, 2003

By A Customer

This review is from: Moon Handbooks: Tennessee: Including Nashville, Memphis, the Great Smoky Mountains, and Nutbush (3rd Edition) (Paperback)

If Mark Twain comes back from the dead to write a guidebook of the state where he was conceived (in Jamestown, as Bradley explains on p. 196), then buy that. But old Sam Clemens would be wasting his time, because in Moon Handbooks: Tennessee, Bradley's already written the "Life on the Mississippi" of Tennessee travel guides.

Like "Mississippi," Bradley's "Tennessee" is so fascinating in in its details and anecdotes that I kept finding myself reading far more than I "needed" to for the travel at hand. And like Clemens, who clearly wrote from a genuine love of the river and the bygone steamboat days that he wanted to capture on paper, all of Bradley's local lore and country cookery reviews and sidebars on everything from roots musicians to the development of the the atom bomb in Oak Ridge...well, these all swirl together to create a sort of love song to the author's native state.

Bradley isn't afraid to criticize where criticism is due--look at his coverage of the outlandish developments near the Smokies. But even then, it's clear his concerns are not based on some disaffected political agenda, but from a genuine, familial concern for a cousin who has lost his way. Consequently, Gatlinburg doesn't "outrage" Bradley, it breaks his heart because of its failed potential. And even then, Bradley doesn't just sneer and proceed into the pristine National Park, shaking Galinburg's dust from his feet. Just as any good family member will make a point of telling you that old yellow-eyed aunt Ruth used to knock 'em dead at the USO dances and can still cook a mean casserole and belt out a showtune, Bradley lingers and explores Gatlinburg on its own terms. He points out its cherished place in many Volunteer hearts (including his own) as a childhood wonderland, and shows that he's not above enjoying the small simple pleasures of a candy shop, or even the more garish wonders of Ripley's aquarium.
If you don't know Tennessee, you won't find a more comprehensive introduction to the entire state. And if you already love Tennessee...you'll find all of the states most endearing qualities captured between the covers--and in the spirit--of this book.