Walt Disney/Disney world books

[jtimmons]

Does anyone know of any good books about Walt Disney and his vision for Disney World. Or any other books that would be a good read on how the ideas for disney world came about.

Thanks,
JT

 

[PIRATEGIRL007]

I like the Imagineering Field Guides, they are informative and give you backstage info about the parks and attraction creations. They have MK, AK, and Epcot, DHS is still not out yet.

 

[VAN]

I don't know if they are still in print but two that I read were

1) A biography written about Walt by his daughter Diane Miller ... I recall reading it many moons ago (pre-WDW) so doubt that it is even available anymore

2) A book about the resurrection of The Disney Company ... all about how it was going down the tubes and then there was a take-over bid by investors who put Michael Eisner in charge ... all the things that Mr. Eisner did to put the company back on track. Say what you will about him, but he really did resurrect the company to what you see today. (Example: Ron Miller, etc felt that the classic Disney movies should only be brought out every 7 years for theatrical release ... Michael Eisner, got them out and sold them in the stores in order to infuse cash into the company.)

I'm sorry I don't know the names of these books or even if they are still in print, but both made a lasting impression on me.

I did visit WDW during their first year and so have the first year commerative booklet that was sold ... that has some great pictures of them building the castle and Magic Kingdom park. That visit was quite memorable for me as I had always want to visit Disneyland. It was our senior trip May 1972 (MK opened in Oct 1971) and the town of Orlando was trying to catch up by rapidly building their infrastructure and hotels to accomodate the influx of tourists! It had just been a sleepy cow town before that!

Anyway, enjoy your reads.

 

[Rockclimber]

2) A book about the resurrection of The Disney Company ... all about how it was going down the tubes and then there was a take-over bid by investors who put Michael Eisner in charge ... all the things that Mr. Eisner did to put the company back on track. Say what you will about him, but he really did resurrect the company to what you see today. (Example: Ron Miller, etc felt that the classic Disney movies should only be brought out every 7 years for theatrical release ... Michael Eisner, got them out and sold them in the stores in order to infuse cash into the company.)

This book was called Disney War by James B Stewart. You can find it on ebay. It was an awesome read. Very intriguing. One of my favorites.

I also like the Imagineering guides, but they just don't have a lot of "meat" in them. But they are great quick reads and have some cool pictures.

Other good reads are biographies that go into the parks include Walt Disney:The triumph of the American Imagination by Neal Gabler.

Other favorites are the books by Bob Thomas, Walt Disney: An American Original and Building a Company: Roy O Disney and the Creation of an Entertainment Empire. Granted they are the "official" books, and may gloss over some of the negatives.

Although the biographies start at the beginning of Walts life, they eventually lead to the creation of the parks. They give you a larger picture of why Walt's personality and drive kept leading him to bigger and bigger things. But if you just want a book on how the parks developed, the biographies are going to take you several hundred pages to get there.

I am thinking about starting the Walt's People books by Didier Ghez.

 

[Nanabug02]

I can very much recommend the book written by Bob Thomas - 'Walt Disney: An American Original'.

I loved this book. It does cover Walt's entire life, but it was so fascinating! I love Walt and his vision even more now, having read that book.

 

[shalom]

Other good reads are biographies that go into the parks include Walt Disney:The triumph of the American Imagination by Neal Gabler.

This one has a brilliant (although short) summary of Walt's vision for WDW versus what actually happened, especially when it comes to Epcot (which I remember from back in the day and still always want to write "EPCOT" ). And a fair bit on the development of Disneyland, of course. I'd think you could use the index to find those if that's the only aspect that interested you but I pretty much read through it start to finish so can't swear to that. I also liked the section on Lillian Disney in that, but the author does tend to devote a few pages here and there to other personalities close to Walt, some of which I really enjoyed, and some of which I only read partway through before skipping ahead to where he got back to Walt.

I also liked Realityland, the David Koenig book on WDW (he did one on Disneyland as well - Mousetales). Much more lightweight than Gabler's book, but also an easier read and more focused on the parks per se.

 

[Cheshire Figment]

There is a very new book, Project Future, by Chad Emerson. It just came out within the past few months. It is subtitled The Inside Story Behind the Creation of Disney World.

It covers the period between November 1963 and opening in October 1971. It goes into great detail about the planning at Disney, the secrecy in getting the property, and the dealings with Florida in getting the Reedy Creek Improvement Districct set up.

Last month Chad Emerson was the Guest Speaker at the World Chapter of NFFC meeting in Celebration, and he was as intreresting as his book. If you are interested in WDW history, this is it.

 

[Toluca Legs TurkeyCo]

1) Walt Disney: Triumph of the American Imagination is the best non-fiction book I ever read. I always marvelled at what Walt accomplished but reading about him in this much depth probably changed who I am as a person.

2) Disney War taught me more about the insides of the company and the entertainment industry than I could have ever hoped to know. It also gave me a great appreciation of what Roy E. Disney did for the company.

On a side note I read Disney War before I went to law school and in my second year business associations class I was called on randomly out of 100 people to discuss the case that concerned the major portion of the book. I knew so much about it that I could barely stop myself from giving every last detail. People were looking at me like I was crazy.

 

[Capt. Barbosa]

I just got this about a month ago from Amazon.

Walt Disney Imagineering: A Behind the Dreams Look at Making More Magic Real

Very informitive and as someone else had already mentioned the Field guides are also very good.

 

[TLinden16]

I'm going to move this to our Disney books board.

 

[Rupert B Puppenstein]

You can find all those books on Amazon. I would recommend all of them. But, the thing I love most is this DVD and the accompanying book: http://www.amazon.com/Walt-Behind-D...ef=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=dvd&qid=1278679125&sr=1-1

The first time they showed this on ABC was right after September 11th and I couldn't wait for it to be released on DVD.

Hopefully they will release this again as people are charging a lot for it. I am hoping when I go to the Disney Family Museum soon that they have a lot more books that I can add to my collection.

 

[jcarwash]

For an in-depth look at Disney architecture, there's "Building a Dream: The Art of Disney Architecture."

I recently read Designing Disney by Walt's right-hand man John Hench. He worked for Disney for 65 years until his death in 2004. Hench was instrumental in the design all the Disney theme parks.

Then for a different take on things there's Cast Member Confidential, written by a cast member who worked as a Photo Pass photographer.

I'd also say that although it is a "traditional" travel guide, the Unofficial Guide to Walt Disney World is chock full of detail and is very interesting. I read the entire giant book from cover to cover and learned all sorts of interesting things about the park. There's also an Unofficial Guide for Disneyland.

 

[Experiment_626]

I've read the Neal Gabler book, but by far my favorite bio of Walt is How to Be Like Walt. It's a biography that also tries to help you incorporate Walt-like traits to your own life. It's a highly inspiring book, and I try to re-read it often.

Another good book about the creation of Walt Disney World is Since the World Began: Walt Disney World: The First 25 Years. As the title makes clear, it covers only the first 25 years, so IIRC Animal Kingdom is represented only by concept paintings and such. Still, there's a lot of great photos and some fairly in-depth information about how the resort was created. Both highly recommended.

 

[::Snow_White::]

I bought The Art of Disney by Christopher Finch on ebay for $3.
It's from 1997, so it's not the most recent, but it's huge and the best book I've read about Disney so far. I'm talking around 500 + Pages and the pages are large with pictures of Walt, the company, DL, & animation.

 

[VAN]

It wasn't the Disney War that I read ... maybe Keys to the Kingdom?

 

[tnmom25]

I don't know if they are still in print but two that I read were

1) A biography written about Walt by his daughter Diane Miller ... I recall reading it many moons ago (pre-WDW) so doubt that it is even available anymore

I'm currently looking for a good biography about Walt and looked this one up. You can get it for the bargain price of $2356.94 on half.com right now!!!

 

[pookersmom]

There is a very new book, Project Future, by Chad Emerson. It just came out within the past few months. It is subtitled The Inside Story Behind the Creation of Disney World.

It covers the period between November 1963 and opening in October 1971. It goes into great detail about the planning at Disney, the secrecy in getting the property, and the dealings with Florida in getting the Reedy Creek Improvement Districct set up.

Last month Chad Emerson was the Guest Speaker at the World Chapter of NFFC meeting in Celebration, and he was as intreresting as his book. If you are interested in WDW history, this is it.

I second this -- this was a fantastic book. I really love it. Really well written too.

 

[EPCOT66bye]

It wasn't the Disney War that I read ... maybe Keys to the Kingdom?

I think you're thinking of "Storming the Magic Kingdom" about Eisner's entrance to the company.

 

[imprimouse]

I found "Creating Magic" by Lee Cockerell to be very enlightening.
Mr. Cockerell is the former EVP of Operations @ WDW.