BooksJason's Thoughts & Observations

2021 Disney Book List

Jason @disneygeek.com ,  ,  , 

2021 BooksHere is my running list of Disney book releases for 2021 that sounded interesting to me.   If you have come across any I missed and you think would be good additions to a disneygeek’s library please share.   Links in this first bulleted list go to reviews I have posted.

Looking further ahead 2022 releases:

  • Delayed (originally – 12/28/21) – Not Just A Walk In The Park: The Creation Of Disney’s Global Resorts
  • 03/15/22 – Women of Imagineering: 12 Careers, 12 Theme Parks, Countless Stories

Guest Book Reviews:

Previous Book Lists:

 

Below is a listing that includes the publisher descriptions for some of the titles:

  • The Art of Star Wars: Galaxy’s Edge
    Publisher Description:
    The Art of Star Wars: Galaxy’s Edge     is the only book to provide an inside look at the magic behind the Star Wars: Galaxy’s Edge themed lands at Disneyland Resort and Walt Disney World Resort, documenting the art and innovations that led to the creation of Galaxy’s Edge. Featuring hundreds of full-color concept artworks, sketches, blueprints, photographs, and more, the book will reveal Walt Disney Imagineering’s creative process.Star Wars: Galaxy’s Edge invites guests to explore Black Spire Outpost, located on the remote Outer Rim planet Batuu—a spaceport bustling with First Order and Resistance activity where guests can interact with droids, creatures, and fan-favorite characters. Alongside Black Spire Outpost’s vibrant cantina and marketplace, a new and original score composed by John Williams accompanies guests as they seek out the land’s two major attractions: Millennium Falcon: Smugglers Run, which allows guests to commandeer the fastest hunk of junk in the galaxy, and Star Wars: Rise of the Resistance, in which guests find themselves in the crossfire of a ferocious battle between the Resistance and the First Order.Exclusive interviews with the key creative minds who shaped the lands’ design provide commentary on what it’s like to dream and then build a life-size Star Wars adventure.Plus, the book offers an inside look at the upcoming Star Wars: Galactic Starcruiser experience, a first-of-its-kind immersive two-night adventure.The Art of Star Wars: Galaxy’s Edge is the only book to provide an inside look at the magic behind the Star Wars: Galaxy’s Edge themed lands at Disneyland Resort and Walt Disney World Resort, documenting the art and innovations that led to the creation of Galaxy’s Edge. Featuring hundreds of full-color concept artworks, sketches, blueprints, photographs, and more, the book will reveal Walt Disney Imagineering’s creative process.Star Wars: Galaxy’s Edge invites guests to explore Black Spire Outpost, located on the remote Outer Rim planet Batuu—a spaceport bustling with First Order and Resistance activity where guests can interact with droids, creatures, and fan-favorite characters. Alongside Black Spire Outpost’s vibrant cantina and marketplace, a new and original score composed by John Williams accompanies guests as they seek out the land’s two major attractions: Millennium Falcon: Smugglers Run, which allows guests to commandeer the fastest hunk of junk in the galaxy, and Star Wars: Rise of the Resistance, in which guests find themselves in the crossfire of a ferocious battle between the Resistance and the First Order.Exclusive interviews with the key creative minds who shaped the lands’ design provide commentary on what it’s like to dream and then build a life-size Star Wars adventure.Plus, the book offers an inside look at the upcoming Star Wars: Galactic Starcruiser experience, a first-of-its-kind immersive two-night adventure.
    Amazon Link – The Art of Star Wars: Galaxy’s Edge
  • Walt Disney World: A Portrait Of The First Half Century
    Publisher Description:
    This expansive, must-have coffee table book paints a robust portrait of the Walt Disney World Resort, across half a century, through diverse and vibrant voices and mostly unseen Disney theme park concept art and photographs.Walt Disney’s vision for “the Florida Project” begins with Disneyland and the 1964-1965 New York World’s Fair. After an imaginative and expansive design, a unique land acquisition process, and an innovative construction period, the Walt Disney World Resort celebrated its Grand Opening in October 1971. It featured a theme park dubbed the Magic Kingdom and three recreational resorts: Disney’s Contemporary Resort, Disney’s Polynesian Village, and Disney’s Fort Wilderness Resort & Campground.As Walt Disney World consistently grew and further evolved through the five decades that followed, certain themes reverberated: an appreciation for nostalgia, a joy for fantasy, a hunger for discovery, and an unending hope for a better tomorrow. Inspirational and memorable theme parks, water parks, sports arenas, recreational water sports, world-class golf courses, vast shopping villages, and a transportation network unlike any other in the world resulted in fun, festive, and familiar characters, traditions, spectacles, merchandise, and so much more. The resort has come to represent the pulse of American leisure and has served as a backdrop for life’s milestones both big and small, public and private.Walt Disney World: A Portrait of the First Half Century serves as a treasure trove for vacationers, students of hospitality, artists, and all Disney collectors.
    Amazon Link – Walt Disney World A Portrait of the First Half Century
  • Walt’s Disneyland: A Walk In The Park With Walt Disney
    Publisher Description:
    A immersive guide to the attractions and landmarks Walt helped create in his original Magic Kingdom!Walt Disney’s personal imprint remains firmly intact at Disneyland. Walt’s Disneyland allows guests to walk around Disneyland identifying the attractions and landmarks Walt championed, touching what he touched, and seeing his original Magic Kingdom through his eyes. Walt’s Disneyland is organized land by land, clockwise, beginning with Main Street, U.S.A. then on to Adventureland, Frontierland, New Orleans Square, Fantasyland, and Tomorrowland.
    Amazon Link – Walt’s Disneyland: A Walk in the Park with Walt Disney
  • Not Just A Walk In The Park: The Creation Of Disney’s Global Resorts
    Publisher Description:
    The never-before-told, behind-the-scenes story of Disney’s pioneering and triumphant global theme park and resort expansion.On June 16, 2016, Shanghai Disneyland Park, located in Pudong, Shanghai, opened to great fanfare and acclaim. Disney Chairman and Chief Executive Bob Iger called the world’s twelfth Disney park “one of the proudest and most exciting moments in the history of The Walt Disney Company.” But a short three decades before, there were only two Disney parks—both in the U.S. How this unique entertainment enterprise expanded and was embraced all around the world is one of the most ambitious and successful, but little-documented aspects of The Walt Disney Company’s history.Leading that pioneering and influential initiative was a fascinating man who, like Walt Disney himself, was the right combination of experience, enterprise, curiosity, and cultural complement at just the right time and place: Disney Legend Jim Cora. Part memoir, part cultural history, part documentary—and always fascinating, revealing, candid, and frequently humorous—Not Just a Walk in the Park: The Creation of Disney’s Global Resorts is the first-ever documentation of Disney’s rise as a worldwide powerhouse in destination recreation and cultural export; and the circumstances, events, and individuals who brought it all to life.Filled with remarkable information, insight, anecdotes, and reflections of places, people, projects, problems, and ultimate successes, this is a one-of-a-kind recollection of a previously unknown aspect of the wide, wonderful world of Disney and how it got that way.Amazon Link – Not Just A Walk In The Park The Creation Of Disney’s Global Resorts
  • Women of Imagineering: 12 Careers, 12 Theme Parks, Countless Stories
    Publisher Description:
    A dozen female Imagineers recount their trailblazing careers!Capturing an era ― and preserving the stories they have told their daughters, their mentees, their husbands, and their friends ― a dozen women Imagineers have written personal stories from their decades designing and building the Disney world-wide empire of theme parks.Illustrated with the women’s personal drawings and photos in addition to archival Imagineering images, the book represents a broad swath of Imagineering’s creative disciplines during a time of unprecedented expansion. Intertwined with memories of Disney legends are glimpses of what it takes behind the scenes to create a theme park, and the struggles unique to women who were becoming more and more important, visible and powerful in a workplace that was overwhelmingly male.Each chapter is unique, from a unique Imagineer’s perspective and experience. These women spent their careers telling stories in three dimensions for the public. Now they’ve assembled their stories in print, with the hope that their experiences will continue to entertain and illuminate.
    Amazon Link – Women of Walt Disney Imagineering: 12 Women Reflect on their Trailblazing Theme Park Careers

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