“Happy 100th Birthday to the Mother Road!”: A Review of Route 66: 100 Years, by Jim Hinckley (Ed.)
(Beverly, MA: Motorbooks, an imprint of The Quarto Group, 2025). ISBN: 978-0-7603-9148-8 This beautifully designed coffee table book, edited by Jim Hinckley (a statue of whom is a popular Route 66 tourist destination in his hometown of Kingman, Arizona), helps to further the case that the myriad books about the Mother Road that continue to be published are very much like the businesses and attractions on the route itself. Each offers a unique view of the landscape and menu. Although I have read more than twenty books and many articles about Route 66 in the past four years—including titles by Hinckley and some of his coauthors here—I found an impressive amount of new information, which I attribute to not only the authors’ varied experiences, but how those experiences shape their individual approaches to their chapters. More on that to come. No matter how educated you are on the subject matter, chances are excellent you’ll learn something new. The photography in Route 66: 100 Y...