Nashville Ghosts and Legends (Haunted America) Paperback – October 17, 2007

Being a resident of Tennessee and having spent several years of my life involved in the country music industry I have been to Nashville many, many times but until I read this book I never thought of it as being a particularly haunted city. When visiting some cities one can't swing a dead cat without hitting a ghost tour wandering up and down the streets but I had never run across one in Nashville. Apparently however there is a tour owned by these authors of this book and it also seems that Nashville is a very haunted city.Given the history of Nashville I suppose that it should come as no surprise that there would be ghosts wandering the "Athens of the South" and given the number of celebrities that have called Nashville home it is probably surprising that there aren't a few famous ghosts making the rounds on Printer's Alley or sipping beer in the corner of Tootsie's Orchid Lounge. I have a feeling that this lack of famous spirits in Nashville proper may have prompted the authors to venture well outside of Nashville for the chapter of this book that details the haunts of Loretta Lynn's home at Hurricane Mills but there was really no need because the stories that they were able to offer from inside the city were truly fascinating.In this book you will find spirits haunting the Ryman Auditorium, Union Station, several restaurants, St. Mary's Catholic Church, the offices of a record company and even a Dillard's at the Green Hills Mall. The stories are well told and offer up a good bit of recent eyewitness testimony. The witnesses aren't identified as a rule but it is often hard to get eyewitness testimony without the offer of anonymity and these eyewitness accounts are what separate a really good ghost book from a book full of old legends and folklore. On the down side many of these stories are a bit on the short side and some of them could use a little more detail. There are also a few places where a little research into the possible origin of the haunt would have added a bit to the story but for the most part all of these stories are fairly solid and complete. The writing is clear, crisp and very readable and most of the stories also contain pictures of the location being discussed so as to help the reader visualize the scene. I also found no historical errors and that is an all too common mistake that is found in this genre. Save for a slight lack of detail these authors have done Nashville proud!

I'm really torn as to how to rate this book. The stories here are the same that can be found in most Nashville ghost collections, which is in no way a criticism of the authors. When writing a books of ghost stories, it makes sense to focus on the popular and most reported ones. No, my biggest issue here is with the writing style. It's extremely flamboyant, which serves as a double edged sword. On one hand, it makes the stories very hard to take seriously as true accounts. On the other hand, it makes them very entertaining to read. Overall, it does read more like fiction than anything else. The stories are also incredible short which provides very little room for history and even less to describe the encounters.

Excellent book, prompt service , Highly recommend