A few months ago I got an offer from The Last Day of the River celebration, to collect research and stories for a new book he was writing, called Happy Place: Living the Disney Parks Life. Well, after a few months, I’m glad to say that the book will be out this week on Tuesday, and MiceChat has a special event you can join the author at. More details after my mini-review.
Happy Place: Living the Disney Parks Life
Happy Place: Living the Disney Parks Life is a fantastic account of Scott’s personal journeys over a year, exploring different aspects of Disney Parks fandom. From fans who attend the park every day, to last year’s D23 Expo, players of in-park games, and even our own MiceChat meets – Happy Place captures parks fandom in a way never done before, and will be looked upon for years to come as a resource of what parks fandom looked like as the parks go through an unprecedented transformation away from classic themes to attractions and experiences based heavily on intellectual property. Every angle of fan is included here too, from old time site runners that have been around longer than Disney has even had a digital strategy, to today’s social-media centric ‘up to the minute’ fandom, to Disneybounders, to attraction record-holders – Scott explores the reactions and impacts that Disney Parks has for all of them.
Scott’s personal perspective is what makes the book the most interesting for me, because as he goes through these different fan-centric activities (like Destination D, D23 Expo, and Disneyland’s 60th 24 hour kickoff), and talks to just about every aspect of a ‘fan’, he discovers how personal the fandom is, and how we all have our own different take on the parks that we love – and be begins to unlock a deeper fandom on his own. It’s a great, fantastic read, and even though I’m in the book, and I’ve been a huge fan in different ways for years, I felt a new type of compassion for other fans, and understanded fandom as a whole better – and how it’s difficult to discredit any one specific type of fandom, even if it wasn’t for me. It’s a nice read that well worth any Disney fan’s time and Happy Place comes highly recommended.
Meet Scott Renshaw at a Happy Place book signing near Disneyland!
Scott will be signing copies of the book at:
Barnes and Noble
Amerige Heights Town Center
1923 West Malvern Avenue
Fullerton, CA 92833
714-871-9855
October 13th from 7:30pm – 9:30pm
Join MiceChat’s Dusty Sage and Scott by RSVPing on this Facebook Event!