Road Literature
Ronald Primeau, Romance of the Road: The Literature of the American Highway (1996)
Kris Lackey, Road Frames (1997)
David Laderman, Driving Visions: Exploring the Road Movie (2002)
1900: L. Frank Baum, The Wonderful Wizard of Oz (annotated ed. by Michael Patrick Hearn, 2000)
1916: Emily Post, By Motor to the Golden Gate
1919: Sinclair Lewis: Free Air
1920: Beatrice Massey, It Could Have Been Worse
1921: Winifred Hawkridge Dixon, Westward Hoboes: Ups and Downs of Frontier Motoring
1927: Franz Kafka, Amerika
1930: John Dos Passos, The 42nd Parallel
1931: John T. Faris, Roaming American Highways
1936: Zephine Humphrey, Green Mountains to Sierras
1938: Roland Wild, Double-Crossing America
1939: John Steinbeck, The Grapes of Wrath (best known proletarian road saga)
1941: Kaj Klitgaard, Through the American Landscape
1945: Henry Miller, The Air-Conditioned Nightmare
1946: Beth O’Shea, A Long Way from Boston
1947: Richard Phenix, On My Way Home
1948: Simone de Beauvoir, America Day by Day
1950: Michael Robertson, Beyond the Sunset
1952: John Clellon Holmes, Go
Carl Rowan, South of Freedom
1954: Jim Thompson, Rough Neck
1955: Vladimir Nabokov, Lolita
1956: Nelson Algren, A Walk on the Wild Side
1957: Jack Kerouac, On the Road
1958: Jack Kerouac, Dharma Bums; The Subterraneans
Jim Thompson, The Getaway
1959: Alex Atkinson & Ronald Searle, By Rocking Chair Across America
1960: Jack Kerouac, Lonesome Traveler
John Howard Griffin, Black Like Me
John Updike, Rabbit Run
1961: J.R. Humphreys, The Lost Towns & Roads of America
John Steinbeck, Travels with Charlie: In Search of America
1962: Clancy Sigal, Going Away: A Report, a Memoir
Douglas Woolf, Wall to Wall
1965: John A. Williams, This Is My Country Too
Truman Capote, In Cold Blood
1966: William Saroyan, Short Drive, Sweet Chariot
1968: Tom Wolfe, The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test
1969: William C. Anderson, The Two-Ton Albatross
Fred Bauer, How Many Miles to Hillsboro?
James Leo Herlihy, Midnight Cowboy
1970: Joan Didion, Play It As It Lays
Larry McMUrtry, Moving On
1971: Michelle Cole, Stuart Black, Checking It Out
Don DeLillo, Americana
Katherine Dunn, Truck
Bill Moyers, Listening to America: A Traveler Rediscovers His Country
Hunter S. Thompson, Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas
1972: Jack Kerouac, Visions of Cody
Tom Robbins, Another Roadside Attraction
Anne Roiphe, Long Division
1973: J.G. Ballard, Crash
Jim Harrison, A Good Day to Die
1974: Robert M. Pirsig, Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance
1975: Mark Vonnegut, The Eden Express
1977: Tom Robbins, Even Cowgirls Get the Blues
1978: Eugene McCarthy, America Revisited: 150 Years after Tocqueville
1979: David Seal, The Powwow Highway
1980: John Keeble, Yellowfish
Hilma Wolitzer, Hearts
1981: Chet Fuller, I Hear Them Calling My Name
Jan Kerouac, Baby Driver
Larry McMurty, Cadillac Jack
Jonathan Raban, Old Glory: An American Voyage
1982: William Least Heat Moon, Blue Highways
Toby Olson, Seaview
Richard Reeves, American Journey: Travelling with Toqueville in Search of Democracy in America
William Saroyan, Short Drive, Sweet Chariot
1984: Jayne Anne Phillips, Machine Dreams
John Updike, Rabbit Run
1985: Charles Kuralt, On the Road with Charles Kuralt
1987: Jim Dodge, Not Fade Away
Dayton Duncan, Out West: An American Journey ( retraces Lewis & Clark)
Jayne Anne Phillips, Fast Lanes
Mona Simpson, Anywhere But Here
Mark Winegardner, Elvis Presley Boulevard
1988: Jan Kerouac, Trainsong
Mary Morris, Nothing to Declare: Memoirs of a Woman Travelling Alone
1989: Bill Bryson, Lost Continent
Ian Frazier, Great Plains
Cynthia Kadohata, The Floating World
1990: Charles Kuralt, My Life on the Road
1991: Jill Schneider, Route 66 across New Mexico
1992: Douglas Brinkley, The Majic Bus: An American Odyssey
1994: Stephen Wright, Going Native
1995: Steven Dixon, Interstate
Jonathan Lethem, Amnesia Moon
1996: Chelsea Cain, Dharma Girl
1997: Mike Bryan, Uneasy Rider: The Interstate Way of Knowledge
Steve Erickson, American Nomad
1999: James Morgan, The Distance to the Moon: A Road Trip into the American Dream
2003: Tom Levinson, All That’s Holy: A Young Guy, An Old Car, and the Search for God in America
The Odyssey by Homer
The Inferno by Dante Alighieri
Gilgamesh
Northanger Abbey – Jane Austen
Alice In Wonderland – Lewis Carroll
Lolita – Nabokov
Confessions of an Ugly Stepsister – Gregory Maguire
The Canterbury Tales- Chaucer
Naked Lunch- William S Burroughs (though I wouldn’t recommend it)
The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings- J.R.R. Tolkien
The Dark Tower Series and The Stand- Stephen King
The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn- Mark Twain
The Road, All the Pretty Horses, and The Crossing- Cormac McCarthy
The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy- Douglas Adams
The Speed Queen- Steward O’Nan
The catcher in the Rye- J.D. Salinger