The American Motel Review

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(More customer reviews)I love Michael Karl Witzel's books (his Route 66 book inspired me to drive the whole route). This may be his best one yet. It has great photos and interesting text and brings back wonderful memories of childhood vacations, when getting to spend the night in a motel was half the fun. But one of the other great aspects of this book is its ability to appeal to a variety of readers, not just fans of the motel. If you enjoy pop culture, roadtrips, roadside Americana, or traveling, this book is for you. I highly recommend it!

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Taking their name from an amalgamation of the words motor and hotel, motels were conceived in the 1920s as roadside lodges for motorists who increasingly set out on vacations by car. As such, the motels development has largely paralleled that of the automobile. Michael Karl Witzel examines the evolution, architecture and decor of the motel in all its forms.--This text refers to an alternate Hardcover edition.

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American Diner Then and Now Review

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(More customer reviews)This is actually the third edition of this work. In 1979, Gutman took the plunge with the simply titled "American Diner" published in hardback by Harper & Row. Done in collaboration with Elliott Kaufman and David Slovic, it was shorter and more loosely organized than the later edition, but a nice and welcome diner book at a time when there still weren't many such books around. In 1993 Gutman came out with "American Diner, Then and Now" which sported revised and substantially enlarged text and better-integrated photos (the Kaufman photo portfolios had also been dropped). This revamped '93 version was a high-water mark for diner books, a now numerous field. With it's perfect balance between individual diner stories ("dinerlore"), photos, and history, and great attention to detail which bespeaks a real love of the subject, this has been an unofficial bible for diner afficionados for the last 7 years.
Now here is the 2000 edition, published in paperback by Johns Hopkins (apparently Barry Levinson's hometown has more interest in diners than the folks at Harper). This is basically just a reprint of the 1993 edition, with a different cover, a new introduction, and a few names added to the diner index at the end. While on the one hand it's great that this modern classic is available again (it had been out of print for several years) I had hoped that there would be some new material in it. To be sure, this book still teaches you how to tell a Paramount from a Mountain View, or a Fodero from a Worcester Lunch Car, and makes a fine gift (Christmas or otherwise) for someone who doesn't have the '93 edition. Nevertheless, at the risk of sounding like an ingrate, I would have to say I slightly prefer the '93 edition, mainly because the cover photo, an interior shot of a restored Worcester Lunch Car, with all that luscious wood, is more attractive than the rather bland shot of Ford's Diner that graces the cover of the 2000 edition. But make no mistake, if you don't have any diner books and are looking for a good one, this is THE one to get----and if you've already got five other diner books, you should still get this, as it has the clearest explication of American diner history you're ever likely to read.

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