50 Books / HT50

Tennessee was connected to some exceptional literary achievements during the second half of the 1990s, including a Pulitzer Prize for poetry awarded to a native son and a legendary journalist’s acclaimed book about the extraordinary young civil rights activists who worked to end segregation in Nashville.

The third installment in our 50 Books / HT50 project features books from the first half of the 1990s, a period that saw the opening of the Tennessee Aquarium in Chattanooga, a record-breaking blizzard in East Tennessee, and the election of a Tennessean, Al Gore, to the vice presidency.

As Humanities Tennessee celebrates its 50th birthday this year, we’re marking the occasion by highlighting 50 notable Tennessee books that have appeared over the past five decades.

Denise Kiernan’s 2013 book The Girls of Atomic City chronicles the experiences of women working in the secrecy-shrouded town of Oak Ridge during WWII. The author will join Jane Marcellus to discuss the book on Facebook Live on September 19.

“The Overstory,” writes Emily Choate, “is like the Smokies — a lush host to manifold inhabitants, some knowable to the casual visitor and others elusive, inscrutable.” Choate will lead a virtual discussion of Richard Powers’ Pulitzer Prize-winning novel on July 18.