Roller Coaster Books

[rcmaniac25]

I don't know about others, but I don't go to theme parks nearly as much as I should...

But I do like to read. Over the years, I found various books on roller coasters and theme parks that I practically read (or at least looked at the pictures) from cover to cover.

Does anyone else do this, and if so, what books do you have?

When I was younger, I ended up picking a set of these based on Chris Sawyer's (the guy who made Roller Coaster Tycoon) recommendations.

Mine include the following:

1. Amusement Parks of New Jersey - Jim Futrell
2. Roller Coasters - Mike Schafer, Scott Rutherford
3. Roller Coasters: or I Had So Much Fun, I Almost Puked - Nick Cook
4. An American Roller Coaster - Scott Rutherford
5. Harry G. Traver Legends of Terror - Richard Munch
6. Roller Coaster: Wooden and Steel Coasters, Twisted, and Corkscrews - David Bennett
7. White Knuckle Ride - Mark Wyatt
8. Roller Coasters: A Thrill Seeker's Guide to the Ultimate Scream Machines - Robert Coker

I'll also throw in these, which I picked up while I was working on a... well, I do programming and was playing around with making an RCT clone, and then a bunch of games were announced and made a lot more progress then myself (life lesson: you can plan something all you want, but if you don't do anything, you'll never get anywhere... I should actually apply this to visiting an amusement park). I haven't fully gone through these yet:

1. Walt Disney Imagineering: a Behind the Dreams Look at Making MORE Magic Real - The Imagineers
2. Theme Park Design: Behind The Scenes With An Engineer - Steve Alcorn
3. Coasters 101: An Engineer's Guide to Roller Coaster Design - Nick Weisenberger

Anyone else?

[Turbo]

I actually still own 2, 3, 4, 6, and 8 from your list

rcmaniac25 wrote:

Roller Coasters - Mike Schafer, Scott Rutherford

Pretty sure that's the only one I have. It's painful how outdated everything is. Some of those entries might be tearjerker material to some.
I don't really care about roller coaster books since there's Google Image search, rcdb, YouTube POV's, and message boards. I feel like if I got one that came out after 2011 and if it mentioned Great Adventure roller coasters I would rip out the pages about them, rip them up to confetti sized pieces, and throw them all away while leaving the rest of the book intact.

[rcmaniac25]

Well, with the exception of the last 3 books mentioned, most if not all those books were purchased early 2000. Google Images may not have existed, RCDB was "eh" then, and YouTube didn't exist.

Message Boards (like, ahem, WeeWeeSlap which is now CoasterCrazy) did exist though.

Edit: Double checked-Google Images did probably exist, I don't think I would've picked up those books prior to 2001... but I do know Google was more of a word search at that time. So if I said "first looping roller coaster" I would not have gotten Loop the Loop or something similar as a image at that time.