I thoroughly enjoyed this brief literary trip, with great Kerrick James photographs, east to west on America's Mother Road. The colorful history of these mostly abandoned towns is fascinating. Too young to call it Memory Lane, I did ride its two-lane blacktop on a bus in Kingman, AZ, bound for the Grand Canyon, during a 2004 vacation in Las Vegas. Highly recommended. ( )

Ghost Towns of Route 66: The Forgotten Places Along America's Famous Highway by Jim Hinckley is a nostalgic yet sad trip through the past along a largely forgotten (as far as use goes) highway.

I remember many trips along Route 66 between about 1963 and 1974, some years more of the road, some less. My family vacations were spent in a car going from family home to family home, with the two constants being Maryland and California (Van Nuys specifically). When we visited northern family we used all or most of the highway, when we visited southern family, we usually just used the western part of the highway. But it was always an interesting trip and it wasn't until the late 70s that I made my first trip as a driver on the road. Fond memories, many of which this book brought back to me. Just about everyone from that time period has a "street corner in Winslow Arizona" story, and a friend of mine called me in 1998 when he was traveling just to use that line. These types of national memories are priceless.

This book highlights both how things were as well as how things are now, so while we visit and see the empty and broken remnants, we also read a little about how these towns flourished. While a very attractive book, I don't think of it as one that is necessarily about the pictures first and the text second (as many coffee table books tend to be), in fact, I would say the text is actually the key to the book while the pictures help to create a more rounded experience.

Definitely recommend to anyone interested in Americana as well as those who remember the time when it was a major road.

Reviewed from a copy made available by the publisher via NetGalley. ( )