Route 66 Still Kicks

“You’ll never understand America until you’ve driven Route 66—that’s old Route 66—all the way,” a truck driver in California once said to author Rick Antonson. “It’s the most famous highway in the world.” With some determination, grit, and a good sense of direction, one can still find and drive on 90 percent of the original Route 66 today. This travelogue follows Rick and his travel companion Peter along 2,400 miles through eight states from Chicago to Los Angeles as they discover the old Route 66. With surprising and obscure stories about Route 66 personalities like Woody Guthrie, John Steinbeck, Al Capone, Salvador Dali, Dorothea Lange, Cyrus Avery (the Father of Route 66), the Harvey Girls, Mickey Mantle, and Bobby Troup (songwriter of “(Get Your Kicks on) Route 66”), Antonson’s fresh perspective reads like an easy drive down a forgotten road: winding, stopping now and then to mingle with the locals and reminisce about times gone by, and then getting stuck in the mud, sucked into its charms. Rick mixes hilarious anecdotes of happenstance travel with the route’s difficult history, its rise and fall in popularity, and above all, its place in legend. The author has committed part of his book’s proceeds to the preservation work of the National Route 66 Federation.

Through the stories of one of Canada's most enthusiastic travellers explore the famous American highway that inspired the likes of Al Capone, Salvador Dali, Mickey Mantle, and the countless fans of this iconic American landmark.

Arizona is home to the longest intact portion of Route 66, stretching 158 miles from west of Ash Fork to the California border. In words and pictures, Naylor and Lindahl explore the history and nostalgia surrounding the "Mother Road," and the great swaths of Arizona that it passes through. They describe a wealth of spectacular and easy side trips that surround the highway. Arizona, the birthplace of Historic Route 66, is where you can still "get your kicks."

It started in the heartland and originally ended in Los Angeles (not, contrary to myth, at the ocean). It carried truckers crossing the country, Okies fleeing the Dust Bowl, vacationers seeking the sun. It was Americas Main Street, the Mother Road, the Will Rogers Highway, and, at its dangerous curves, Bloody 66. Get your kicks on Route 66 with this wonderfully illustrated tribute to the best-loved highway in this car-loving nation. Michael Witzel shares his expertise and wealth of personal, archive, collector, and contributing photographer images in these pages, offering a nostalgic tour of the charms and oddities of this road through American cultural history. Starting in Chicago and running to Santa Monica, this book highlights the sights along the highway with historic and current photos in then-and-now pairings, and includes Route 66 postcards, road signs, trinkets, maps, brochures, and advertisements. Here we see Route 66 as it was in its heyday and as it is now, the neon glamour of yesterday versus the ghost towns of today. Witzel and his wife, Gyvel Young-Witzel, recount the highways history, its role in popular culture, and its demise, as well as the individual stories of famous sights. Several profiles of those with close ties to the Mother Road, including the woman who played Ruthie Joad in the The Grapes of Wrath film, are included.

Now available in paperback!!This incredible collection of historical photographs captures the reverence of all the attractions and towns of the Mother Road, Route 66. Noted author Michael Witzel spent years traveling Route 66 collecting mementos of life and folklore that make up the most famous road in America. His unmatched photography takes readers back to the attractions and towns as they were and offers a captivating view of them today. Here it is, the American highway past and present in Motorbooks' beautiful 10 x 10 format, the classic photographic essay of an American legend.

Winner of the J. B. Jackson Prize for the Best Book in Cultural Geography!

Route 66 Adventure Handbook is your personal guide to the vanishing American roadside, with all of its exuberance, splendor, and absurdity. For this updated and expanded fourth edition, Drew Knowles has included it all: magnificent architecture, natural wonders, Art Deco masterpieces, vintage motels and cafes, unique museums, offbeat attractions, fascinating artifacts and icons, and kitschy tourist traps. The addition of city maps, showing the multiple paths of Route 66 and displaying the exact locations of points of interest, is a major improvement over the already critically acclaimed third edition of the book. The fourth edition also includes hundreds of beautiful new photographs and the addition of dozens of new attractions. Filled with wonderfully quirky side trips and fun bits of trivia, Route 66 Adventure Handbook is the most authoritative resource for anyone looking to explore the Mother Road. Fasten your seatbelts!

A “remarkable chronicle” of a journey back to this West African nation after years of exile (The New York Times Book Review). Noo Saro-Wiwa was brought up in England, but every summer she was dragged back to visit her father in Nigeria—a country she viewed as an annoying parallel universe where she had to relinquish all her creature comforts and sense of individuality. After her father, activist Ken Saro-Wiwa, was killed there, she didn’t return for several years. Then she decided to come to terms with the country her father given his life for. Traveling from the exuberant chaos of Lagos to the calm beauty of the eastern mountains; from the eccentricity of a Nigerian dog show to the decrepit kitsch of the Transwonderland Amusement Park, she explores Nigerian Christianity, delves into the country’s history of slavery, examines the corrupting effect of oil, and ponders the huge success of Nollywood. She finds the country as exasperating as ever, and frequently despairs at the corruption and inefficiency she encounters. But she also discovers that it is far more beautiful and varied than she had ever imagined, with its captivating thick tropical rain forest and ancient palaces and monuments—and most engagingly and entertainingly, its unforgettable people. “The author allows her love-hate relationship with Nigeria to flavor this thoughtful travel journal, lending it irony, wit and frankness.” —Kirkus Reviews

The "Mother Road," opened in 1926 and decommissioned in 1984, played a prominent role in the transformation of the nation. Now an international legend through popular culture and the arts, Route 66 has become the road trip of a lifetime. New Mexico Kicks on Route 66 takes you on a tour through all the fun places along the New Mexico stretch, steeped in the rich and diverse history of the Land of Enchantment.