We are nearing the end of the year and the "must-have" Disney history books of 2019 are becoming obvious. I will update this list in 6 weeks, but here is my initial selection. It is a highly subjective selection and I am focusing only on Disney history books (art books about Disney which are not strictly history-focused are not included for example, nor are books that pretend to be non-fiction and are really historical fiction). I hope you will enjoy this list.

Merritt, Chris; Docter, Pete: Marc Davis In His Own Words: Imagineering the Disney Theme Parks published by Disney Editions; 2019.

Kaufman, J.B.: The Making of Walt Disney's Fun and Fancy Free published by Hyperion Historical Alliance Press; 2019.

Ghez, Didier: They Drew As They Pleased book series - The Hidden Art of Disney's Early Renaissance published by Chronicle Books; 2019.

Ghez, Didier: Walt's People - Volume 22 published by Theme Park Press; 2019.

Kaufman, JB; Hollifield, Jim (editors): 2019 Hyperion Historical Alliance Annual published by Hyperion Historical Alliance Press; 2019.

Pierce, Todd James: The Life and Times of Ward Kimball: Maverick of Disney Animation published by University Press of Mississippi; 2019.

Johnson, Mindy: Pencils, Pens & Brushes: A Great Girls' Guide to Disney Animation published by Disney Press; 2019.

Iger, Robert: The Ride of a Lifetime: Lessons Learned from 15 Years as CEO of the Walt Disney Company published by Random House; 2019.

Rafferty, Kevin: Magic Journey: My Fantastical Walt Disney Imagineering Career published by Disney Editions; 2019.

Sklar, Marty: Travels with Figment: On the Road in Search of Disney Dreams published by Disney Editions; 2019.

Koenig, David: The 55ers - The Pioneers Who Settled Disneyland published by Bonaventure Press; 2019.

Gurr, Bob: Legendary Imagineer: Life and Times - Disney and Beyond published by Bob Gurr; 2019.

Korkis, Jim: Disney Never Lands: Things Disney Never Made published by Theme Park Press; 2019. (And all of the other books released by Jim this year).

Great photos of Walt and Lillian visiting Colonial Williamsburg on October 14, 1944. If I am not mistaken the second person from the right is Studio executive Carl Nater. Can someone confirm this?

Thanks to François Monferran‎ for his heads up about this great video of Walt visiting the Swiss national exposition of 1964.

Walt's People - Volume 23 - An Update

You may have noticed that the release of Walt's People - Volume 23 is a little bit late. Some good news, though: I will deliver the final manuscript to the publisher on Monday and I am hoping that the book will be released by mid-December at the latest. Here is what it will contain:

Foreword: Tom Sito
The Letters of Peter Adby
Joe Collura: Sterling Holloway - A Way with Words
Edward Summer: Sterling Holloway
EMC West: Tyrus Wong
Family Circle magazine: Ken Anderson and Woolie Reitherman
Edward Summer: Woolie Reitherman
Christopher Finch and Linda Rosenkrantz: Woolie Reitherman
Michael Barrier: Les Novros, Bill Hurtz, and Paul Julian
Didier Ghez: Rudy Cataldi
Michael Broggie: Bob Harpur
Jack Hannah
Jay Horan: Joe Potter
Didier Ghez: Jeff Burke

I have been working in recent days on an in-depth essay about, Grace Huntington, the second woman to join Disney's Story Department. I am extremely proud of that essay which covers a lot of new ground and which will be released next year in the second volume of the Hyperion Historical Alliance Annual.

For those of you who have yet to pick up the first HHA Annual, it is still available on Amazon and contains some really in-depth essays exploring a large variety of fascinating Disney-history-related topics. From my standpoint (I am not the most objective observer, of course) this is Disney history at its best.

Speaking of which: you will notice that I try to review or promote all the relevant Disney history books that are released. You will also notice, from time to time, that I specifically avoid mentioning a few books. Usually when I ignore them it means that they do not meet bare minimum of quality standards when it comes to Disney history, This is especially the case for books that present themselves as "non-fiction" and end up being "historical fiction."

Thankfully there are not too many of those and there are enough well-researched, reliable new Disney history books that I still have my work cut-out for me for years to come.

This website contains some marvelous documents. Thanks to Michael Goldberg for the heads up!

I thought I had finally caught up on all the great Italian books about Disney comics that have been released in recent years, when I realized that three more have been published when I wasn't looking. Oh well...