Just got the new edition. Great book if you like getting outdoors with the dogs ( )

Molloy, Johnny. 60 Hikes within 60 Miles, Nashville: Including Clarksville, Columbia, Gallatin, and Murfreesboro. 2nd ed. Birmingham: Menasha Ridge Press, 2007. ISBN 13: 978-0-89732-607-0, ISBN 10: 0-89732-607-5.

There is obviously a numbers game going on among books on hiking in Tennessee: 40 Hikes in Tennessee’s South Cumberland, by Russ Manning (3rd edition, 2000); 50 Hikes in the Tennessee Mountains, by Doris Gove, 2001); and the first edition of 60 Hikes within 60 Miles: Nashville (2002). Do I hear 70? How about 62, the number of trails covered in Hiking Tennessee, by Kelley Roark (1996)? (A second edition of this guide is in the works, due out in 2009.) But the grandfather of them all is Hiking Tennessee Trails, by Evan Means and updated by Bob Brown (5th edition, 1999), which dates back to 1979; it includes 125 trails from the mountains to the Mississippi and is the sine qua non among Tennessee trail books.

Johnny Molloy, a Tennessee native, is a busy man, having written twenty-nine books on hiking, camping, paddling, and other outdoor adventures, mostly in the Southeast—as can be appreciated at his own website http://www.johnnymolloy.com/. Thus this second edition of 60 Hikes within 60 Miles: Nashville follows the model of other 60 Hikes in other Southeastern states consisting of (1) hiking recommendations by length and setting, (2) an introduction to the book and to hiking itself, (3) sixty entries on sixty hikes, (4) appendices bearing very little information, and (5) an index. Each entry includes (1) key at-a-glance information on each trail (length, configuration, difficulty, etc.), (2) in-brief description followed by a fuller description of the trail in question, (3) directions to get there, (4) GPS trailhead coordinates, (5) a map of the trail, and (6) nearby/related activities—all of this laid out in very legible black-and-white maps and photos. Of the 60 trails, 16 are in the immediate Nashville area, 13 west of Nashville, 9 to the southwest, 11 to the southeast, and 11 to the east—a nice balance for anyone living or visiting in the general area.

The only competitor in terms of geographical coverage is Robert Brandt’s excellent Middle Tennessee on Foot: Hikes in the Wood & Walks on Country Roads (1998). Of the 60 trails featured in Molloy, only 24 appear in Brandt, but the latter’s book includes 17 sites that extend beyond Molloy’s 60-mile limit from Nashville. Also, Brandt’s attention to historical detail and setting gives a richness to his book that will not be easily superceded, even if Molloy is more up to date. I also prefer Brandt’s arrangement by park or area rather than by name of trail; generic names such as Highland Trail, Lakeside Trail, Pinnacle Trail, Perimeter Trail, and Connector Trail have no meaning when listed by themselves.

The fact that Molloy’s guide is limited to hiking trails within sixty miles of Nashville does not mean that it will not be useful in libraries elsewhere in the state and beyond. Nashville has become a major tourist site and many of those tourists come to enjoy the natural beauty of this area as well as its music and other attractions. Recommended for all libraries in the state.

Reviewed by Edwin S. Gleaves
State Librarian & Archivist (Ret.) ( )