Your Favorite Disney Books

So... my wonderful mother (corkins441 here on DWT) has, over the past two months, introduced me to the world of Disney World Travel books. As if all the websites out there weren't enough to fuel my passion, now I have books to enjoy as well!

The 4 I have now that I'm just LOVING (other than both of Lou's Trivia books) are:

The Unofficial Guide to Walt Disney World 2008 - Massive amounts of information!

Passporter's Walt Disney World 2008 - A fun little book that can be filled with your vacation memories and turned into a souvenier from the trip.

The Imagineering Field Guide to the Magic Kingdom - The Magic Kingdom through an Imagineer's eyes... filled with all sorts of neat tidbits.

The Complete Walt Disney World 2008 - Gorgeous full color book that breaks down each park, restaurant, hidden mickeys... you name it.
(the link on this one isn't to the newest version)

So it got me to thinking... what are some of your favorite "world" books, and why?

I'm pretty sure that, out of the travel books, the Unofficial is my favorite. it seems to "tell it like it is" so to speak.

But as far as just Disney books go, I like the ones that come with records. As a child I had many of these and I've just begun collecting them again to share with my future offspring. They had some great art in them (paintings, not just hastily rendered "doodles" like in many of the read-along book-and-record combos of the same time period) and the stories, though told in terms a child could understand, were not "dumbed down" at all. That's one thing I always like about Disney stuff when I was a kid, it never insulted my intelligence or assumed that I couldn't understand certain plot points.
My current personal favorite of these is the 33 1/3 rpm LP of the Haunted Mansion book-and-record combo. It could be one of the greatest records ever released, imo, counting the book and the record as one single package.

We like the Birnbaum book because it's fairly light to carry and is well organized.

I like the Birnbaum guidebook because my kids can look through it with me. But when it comes to my actual planning of the trip, I use the Unofficial guide because it's straight forward with info.

I probably have approximately 70 books about things related to Disney. A lot of them are theme park related although I have some that are just informational.

There was a column in Miceage about Disney books last year. It lists over 200 Disney titles, where you can get them and how difficult it is to obtain them. Here's the link:

MiceAge.com - A different look at Disney...

I love to read the Birnbaum's book. Like Sharpays Mom said it is very organized. I also love THe Kingdom Keepers!! I can't wait 'till the next one comes out. The Feild Guide to the Magic Kingdom is also very good. It is an easy read.

I have two new favorites to share...

1) Walt Disney (the biography) by Neal Gabler
2) The Disney Mountains: Imagineering at Its Peak

The Unofficial Guide and the Passporter are my favourites. I even buy the Unofficial Guide when we are not going to WDW! The Brit's Guide is also good for first time visitors from the UK.

Of the books I actually own here's some of my favorite titles;

"Remembering Walt" Greene & Boothe
"Window on Main Street" Van France
"Disneyland: The Nickel Tour" Mumford & Gordon
"Mouse Tales" and "Realityland" Koenig
"Walt Disney's Missouri" Burns, Viet, & Butler

I also love reading any of my E-Ticket Magazine issues. And I love to just sit and stare at any DL or WDW pictorial souvenir guides I've bought over the years. My favorite travel guides for both DL and WDW are Birnbaums and Unnofficial, and like some of you I read them even when I've got no trip planned.

There are a bunch of new books I'd love to purchase like Imagineering Legends, DL Hotel the Early Years, or the Surrell books on POTC and HM, but haven't really got to them yet.