In this wholly original book, biologist David Haskell uses a one-square-meter patch of old-growth Tennessee forest as a window onto the entire natural world. Visiting it almost daily for one year to trace nature's path through the seasons, he brings the forest and its inhabitants to vivid life. Each short chapter begins with a simple observation: a salamander scuttling across the leaf litter; the first blossom of spring wildflowers. From these, Haskell...

"From the 1920s through 1950, Georgia Tann ran a black-market baby business at the Tennessee Children's Home Society in Memphis. She offered up more than 5,000 orphans tailored to the wish lists of eager parents--hiding the fact that many weren't orphans at all, but stolen children of poor families, desperate single mothers, and women told in maternity words that their babies died. The publication of Lisa Wingate's novel Before We Were Yours brought...

Pat Summit, a country girl from Henrietta, Tennessee, grew up learning the game of basketball with a homemade backboard in a barn against three brothers who gave no quarter. She spent most of her time in the tobacco fields, tending them under the eye of an unyielding father. He would mold a relentless competitor and nonconformist daughter of the South who would go on to set all-time records for victories and forever alter the possibilities for women...

A story based on the true experiences of a Civil War heroine Carrie McGavock, The Widow of the South, took it upon herself to grieve the loss of many young men in the battle of Franklin, Tennessee, which took place on November 30, 1864. Nine thousand men lost their lives that day. Before the battle begins, Carrie's house is commandeered for a field hospital and all normal life is suspended. Carrie is anything but normal, however. She has buried three...

In this exploration of the first "great and terrible" battle of the Civil War, Groom describes the dramatic events of April 6 and 7, 1862, when a bold surprise attack on Ulysses S. Grant's encamped troops and the bloody battle that ensued would alter the timbre of the war.

The history of the Ingram Content Group is one of the most important and remarkable business stories that almost no one knows. Launched as a favor to a family friend, it started as a local textbook distributor-one tiny division within a thriving corporation focused on oil, construction supplies, and shipping. It grew into the world's largest book wholesaler, then into the most influential and innovative supplier of infrastructure and services to publishers...

"The definitive tale of the birthplace of rock and roll Memphis Mayhem weaves the tale of the racial collision that led to a cultural, sociological, and musical revolution. Beginning with the 1870s yellow fever epidemics that created racial imbalance as wealthy whites fled his hometown, David Less moves beyond W.C. Handy's codification of the blues in 1909 to the mid-century advent of interracial music, the birth of punk, and finally to the growth...

This critical civil rights book for middle-graders examines the little-known Tennessee's Fayette County Tent City Movement in the late 1950s and reveals what is possible when people unite and fight for the right to vote. Powerfully conveyed through interconnected stories and told through the eyes of a child, this book combines poetry, prose, and stunning illustrations to shine light on this forgotten history.

Like no other music history, It Came From Memphis dishes its tuneful tale with a full context of social issues. From institutional racism to cowboy movies, from manic disc jockeys to Quaalude motorcycle gangs, this story is as unvarnished a history of rock and roll as ever has been written. The Memphis aesthetic is to invert expectations: artists seek imperfection, embracing mistakes and doing it all wrong by forging their own paths to get it exactly...

Lyndie B. Hawkins loves history, research, and getting to the truth no matter what. But when it comes to her family, her knowledge is full of holes. Like, what happened to her father in the Vietnam War? Where does he disappear to for days? And why exactly did they have to move in with her grandparents? Determined to mold recalcitrant Lyndie into a nice Southern girl even if it kills her, her fusspot grandmother starts with lesson number one: Family=Loyalty=keeping...