Book Reviews

The Story Behind the Smile
By Lynn McMahon
Blue Ridge Summit, PA: Globe Pequot, 2023
Softcover, 166, 27.95
Reviewed by Harold Aurand Jr.

In 1933, Bob Wian sold his DeSoto roadster to buy a 10-seat hamburger stand in Glendale, California. Soon, he created a double-decker hamburger and adopted a chubby, cartoon kid with red-and-white checked overalls as a mascot. The Big Boy chain was born.

Unlike modern franchises, which build identical stores everywhere, Wian sold regional rights to use his iconic burger and advertising imagery to different people. You could get a Big Boy at Elby’s in West Virginia, or Shoney’s in the South, or Frisch’s in Ohio.

Hand Painted
By Tom Palazzolo
Self-published, 2024
Softcover, 100 pages, $25
Reviewed by William Swislow

The golden age of roadside neon is, of course, long past, but at least the surviving signs are increasingly recognized as local, even national, treasures. Another once ubiquitous roadside art form, the hand-painted shop sign, has received much less recognition despite its even more precipitous decline.

The Great American RETRO Road Trip: A Celebration of Roadside Americana
By Rolando Pujol
Artisan Publishers, 2025
Hardcover, 320, $35
Reviewed by Heather David

WANDERLUST. I have it. Chances are, you do too. Every place has a story to tell, and this narrative can be experienced through its history, cultural artifacts, and customs. Rolando Pujol’s new book, The Great American RETRO Road Trip, is a tome that is sure to help satisfy your wanderlust. In what once seemed like an impossible task to me, Pujol has produced an encyclopedia of “Roadside Americana,” one book that covers hundreds of unique attractions across the country, from coast to coast.

Screen Towers: The Drive-In Theater in America
By Steve Fitch, with an introduction by Katherine Ware (photography curator and artist)
Hardcover, 136 pages, $45
Reviewed by Steve Spiegel

I’ve been obsessed with drive-in movie theaters for as long as I can remember. The first movie I ever watched at a drive-in was Chitty Chitty Bang Bang in 1968 at a long-forgotten theater in Cincinnati, Ohio. I was five and watching that film from the comfort of our family’s Chevy station wagon, backed in with the rear door flipped open, which let me lie down with my blanket and pillow. This was the beginning of my love affair with drive-in theaters. I’ve been so obsessed that when eBay was a brand-new site, my very first purchase was a vintage drive-in movie speaker! (Yes, I still have it.)

American Sign Museum: Celebrating 25 Years
By Text: Sam Roberts, Photography: Natalie Grilli, Design)
American Sign Museum, 2025
Hardcover & Softcover, 168 pages, Hardcover $84, Softcover $42
Reviewed by Josh Silber

A “Great Sign” will greet you as you arrive at the American Sign Museum (ASM) in Cincinnati. Anyone of a certain age will undoubtedly recognize the iconic totem that once stood out front of so many Holiday Inn hotels in America from 1954 to 1982. And while the Holiday Inn sign remains universally recognizable even after all these years, shockingly, the one outside the ASM is believed to be the “last authentic original” in existence. The surprising history of this Great Sign is just a small bit of the overall story of signage chronicled in a new book, American Sign Museum: Celebrating 25 Years, recently published by the American Sign Museum.

The Golden Era of Sign Design: The Rediscovered Sketches of Beverly Sign Co.
By Kelsey Dalton McClellan and Andrew McClellan
Chicago: Heart & Bone Signs and Heavy Pages Press, 2024 Hardcover, 216 pages, $85
Reviewed by William Swislow

It’s not often that you get to see technical diagrams of ghosts, but this book collects around 140 sketches that are exactly that — design drawings, complete with notes, color specs, and other instructions, from Chicago’s prolific Beverly Sign Co.

Palm Springs Tiki: Polynesia in the Desert
By Sven Kirsten and Peter Moruzzi
Kaysville, UT: Gibbs Smith, 2024
Hardcover, 200, $35
Reviewed by Andy Panda Montero

The midcentury modern era and Tiki Polynesian pop culture flourished in the U.S. for several decades following World War II. Who would have considered combining them in Palm Springs, the desert oasis of California? That’s precisely what occurred, and authors Sven Kirsten and Peter Moruzzi bring this unexpected pairing to life in their stunning book, Palm Springs Tiki: Polynesia in the Desert.

"Looking Back at the Future: Photographing Vintage Leftovers of New York’s World’s Fairs
By Gloria R. Nash
New York: NRG Press, 2024
Softcover, 123 pages, $29.95
Reviewed by Douglas C. Towne

With the stars of the 1939 Fair, such as General Motors’ “Futurama” exhibit and Trylon and Perisphere, the oversized obelisk and globe practically in my DNA, it was with great interest that I read SCA member Gloria R. Nash’s recent book documenting the remnants of the 1939 and 1964- 65 New York World’s Fairs.

Nash, too, carries the World’s Fair DNA from her childhood, as she watched in awe the light shows and fireworks from the 1964-65 Fair from her family’s apartment in Queens. She was also a frequent fair visitor. “Even at ages 10 and 11, I sensed the fair would be among the highlights of my life,” Nash writes. “More than a group of buildings, they represented an energy that defined the pinnacle of the era’s creativity in architecture, art, design, engineering, industry, and technology.