6. Disneyland Paris: From Sketch to Reality

Author: Alain Littaye

Even if you’ve never visited Disneyland Paris – even if you never intend to! –Disneyland Paris: From Sketch to Reality remains a must-have that will change your perception of the European resort forever. Curated by Alain Littaye – the voice behind the spectacular Disney and More blog – this coveted, limited-run, 320-page behemoth is stocked cover-to-cover with rare concept art, construction photos, and accounts of the unprecedented detail that went into this one-of-a-kind park.

Among Disney Parks fans, it’s well known that Disneyland Paris is a pinnacle of Imagineering, somehow blending the intimacy and warmth of Disneyland, the scale and scope and Magic Kingdom, and the grandeur and detail of DisneySea. From Sketch to Reality reveals how.

The book is a comprehensive resource, exploring each of the park’s themed lands from initial concept to execution, revealing the ingenious way that Imagineers shifted each land at its core to appeal to European audiences, creating spectacular one-of-a-kind attractions like the park’s Modern Marvel: Phantom Manor and its fan-favorite Lost Legend: Space Mountain – De la Terre à la Lune.

Disneyland Paris: From Sketch to Reality is a must-have because it’s curated by an Imagineering fan for Imagineering fans, presenting what’s likely to be the most thoughtful and thorough look at a Disney Park’s design from the ground up ever to be published.

7. Liar’s Guide to Disneyland

Author: Horatio Liar

The Liar’s Guide to Disneyland is proudly the funniest, “most inaccurate, least helpful guide to the Disneyland Resort ever published,” and is “97% Fact Free.” Assembled by “Horatio Q. Liar,” the guide is a complement to DisneyLies.com, a must-scour website that reads as an almost-true guide to the parks packed with sarcastic detail that will leave fans laughing out loud.

For example (and particularly timely), the guide’s entry on Pirates of the Caribbean points out, “Of particular note is a scene in which a pirate is holding a flower pot and handing a woman a flower. Originally, this scene was of a pirate grabbing a woman’s purse and punching her in the face, but it was changed to reflect modern sensibilities. This explains why the pirate his clenching the flower in his fist and, apparently, handing it to her nose.”

Or of Disney California Adventure’s Lost Legend: The Twilight Zone Tower of Terror, Liar offers, “The lightning strike not only vaporized an elevator full of guests … it also mysteriously retrofitted all of the hotel's elevators with seats and safety bars and opened up a nexus into -- The Twilight Zone. It's interesting to note that an almost identical tragedy occurred some years ago at a similar hotel in Florida.”

While Liar’s guide may be a 300 page comedy collection, it’s surprisingly on-the-nose with its dissections of Disney culture and Imagineering staples.

8. Universal vs. Disney

Author: Sam Gennawey

Our friends at The Unofficial Guide have done it again with Sam Gennawey’s spectacular Universal Vs. Disney. This is the book you want to be reading on your next flight to Los Angeles or Orlando. The book is mostly chronological, weaving through the unusual relationship between the two media giants and their unspoken rivalry in Orlando and beyond.

The book is historical and informative, but a wildly entertaining page-turner, exploring the concepts each company cooked up to outwit the other, culminating in the design of Universal’s second theme park in Orlando and first real try at creating a Disney-style experience from scratch. And, as we saw in Modern Marvels: The Amazing Adventures of Spider-Man, it was originally not Islands of Adventure…

Universal vs. Disney is – like the rivalry it’s named for – a lot of fun. Best of all, it dives into the creative history of Universals parks, so often overlooked because of the big names and movers and shakers known through Disney Imagineering. All in all, Gennawey’s book should be on the shelf of all industry fans.

Also read: Sam Gennawey's The Disneyland Story