The best books about Route 66 are Michael Wallis's Route 66: The Mother Road for the history, the EZ66 Guide for Travelers by Jerry McClanahan for actually driving it, and Susan Croce Kelly and Quinta Scott's Route 66: The Highway and Its People for the human and photographic record. The highway crosses New Mexico for nearly 400 miles — through Tucumcari's neon, Santa Rosa, Albuquerque's Central Avenue, Grants, and Gallup — making the state one of the richest stretches of the whole road. This reading list covers the road and its New Mexico miles. For the collecting view, see the Route 66 collecting guide; for the full canon, Best Books Set in New Mexico.
Published June 2026 · Curated by Josh Eldred, New Mexico Literacy Project
Route 66: The Mother Road — Michael Wallis
The book that helped spark the modern Route 66 revival. Wallis tells the highway's story town by town, character by character, with deep attention to the New Mexico stretch. The essential popular history and the best place to start.
Route 66: The Highway and Its People — Susan Croce Kelly & Quinta Scott
A classic that pairs Kelly's interviews with the people of the road and Scott's black-and-white photographs of its surviving landmarks. The human heart of the highway, captured before much of it vanished.
EZ66 Guide for Travelers — Jerry McClanahan
If you actually want to drive the old road, this is the book in every Route 66 traveler's glovebox — detailed turn-by-turn maps and directions that keep you on the historic alignment, including the New Mexico segments and the tricky pre- and post-1937 routings around Santa Fe and Albuquerque.
The Grapes of Wrath — John Steinbeck
The literary monument of the road. Steinbeck named Route 66 "the mother road, the road of flight" as he followed the Joad family's Dust Bowl migration west — a journey that runs across New Mexico. The book that gave the highway its soul.
Route 66 in New Mexico
New Mexico's Route 66 has its own deep literature and lore — the neon of Tucumcari, the Blue Swallow Motel, the Route 66 Auto Museum in Santa Rosa, Albuquerque's Central Avenue and the KiMo Theatre, and the older pre-1937 alignment that detoured north through Santa Fe. Regional and photographic histories of the New Mexico stretch are gathered in the New Mexico Route 66 collecting guide.
Frequently asked questions
What is the best book about Route 66?
Michael Wallis's Route 66: The Mother Road for the history and the EZ66 Guide for Travelers for driving it today.
Where did "Mother Road" come from?
John Steinbeck coined it in The Grapes of Wrath (1939).
What towns does Route 66 pass through in New Mexico?
Tucumcari, Santa Rosa, Albuquerque (Central Avenue), Grants, and Gallup, with an older alignment through Santa Fe.
Cite This Guide
Eldred, J. (June 2026). Best Books About Route 66. New Mexico Literacy Project.
https://newmexicoliteracyproject.org/best-books-about-route-66
Original curation by Josh Eldred. Licensed under CC BY 4.0.