Ok, what are the 10 most essential Star Wars Nonfiction Books? And why did you pick those? Yes for Canon AND Legends! And Yes even Behind the Scenes books! This is not just about inuniverse lore but a general understanding of the SW universe and the most ambitious, comprehensive and deepcutting SW nonfiction books out there! I'll allow some guidebook series to be summarized as one top ten entry though naming specific books that outshine others in that series would be ideal! Amongst my 10 top pickings would be in no particular order: West End Games SW RPG, especially: The Star Wars Sourcebook => though some Galaxy Guides come close too regarding influence and impact, WEG defined a lot for the galaxy as we know it The Essential Guides, especially: The Essential Atlas => not just summarising the vast Expanded Universe but adding new lore and retcons, this guide series excelled with multiple top examples, but Chronology, Warfare (aka Atlas vol.2) and else aside, the Atlas is the unbeaten top of this series and its galactic and real world impact! The Book of Sith => The series of inuniverse books with gimmicks and more lore than you can dream about truly is like essential guides but written even more inuniverse than those were in some cases. The Book of Sith excells at deepcutting the understanding of the Force when Plagueis explores it. But it should be read in conjunction with the novel Plagueis and a few others. Star Wars Archives & Star Wars Archives The Prequels by Paul Duncan => Interviews with George Lucas to end all interviews, shedding a lot of light on never before seen or heard details of SW and aside BTS and with big inuniverse relevance as well. The Making of Star Wars, The Making of TESB, The Making of ROTJ by J.W.Rinzler (+extpanded digital edition content!) => The behemoth mother of all making of books, these are the definite in depth Making of with lots of art, files and discarded alternate story ideas to fill an entire multiverse of Star Wars. The Art of Ralph McQuarrie (yes the heavy big one two book box set with ALL of his SW art ever) => beyond words, just look at it! The Art of "Insert Movie Title" for every Episode 1 - 9 => Aside plans and setmaps, these double as BTS snippet books in image captions as well as showing many roads not taken that can and were mined for many other later projects. Star Wars and History => Like DK's Star Wars: The Power of Myth it highlights the real world historic and fabled inspirations for the Saga and shows in many essays quite well how multiple influences were merged for creating SW unique setting as well as how the same inspiration invoked several distinct SW elements. Most of all though viewing SW through a historians lense as detailed in this book, is perfect for a galaxy far, far away from a long, long time ago! Galactic Phrase Book and Travel Guide => this book needs an update and heavy expansion by now but truly is a great timeless inuniverse written piece with lots of fun, lots of SW languages and a section on BTS. Along with "The Written Word" and other books, articles, Magazines etc. that took to SW languages, alphabets and linguistics, I hope we get a comprehensive update one day instead of snippets here and there. A lot of fans like Aurekfonts page could seriously help such a project like other fans did the Atlas back in the day. Star Wars: Behind the Magic CD-Rom => well not a book, but a lovely blast from the past... which still is better than the official starwars website and databank by lengths! Lots of browseable data, a great unique and new galaxy map and stuff of Legends like Test_Bay_94 which to date is the BEST SW game ever, ever ever (well, Tie-Fighter is on second place and TinyDeathStar on third)! that's ten already... well a honorary eleventh mention then: Star Wars Fact Files Magazine, first run that is, which featured some retcons, original art along with already known one and new maps! If anybody could do a poll with our top picks or all nonfiction so people can vote on their top picks, that'd be wizard!
Good list! Only book I can add would be The Annotated Screenplays. Reading the original ideas helps you see when they are reused but slightly tweaked.
Personally I would love to add The Wildlife of Star Wars: A Field Guide and WEG: Creatures of the Galaxy to that list. I can't really think of a good reason for it to most fans, but to me personally star wars creatures are as much a part of the forumla as the force, spaceships, and droids, and deserve more appreciation. Plus, it does a lot to make the universe feel like a real, lived in place, which is also a big part of the star wars charm. The Illustrated star wars universe is also pretty good - in particular, the bit on Alderaan really drives home just how much was lost with that world - but the Essential Guide to Planets and Moon and The Art of Ralph McQuarrie combined would have almost everything it has with bonus material so it is hard to describe as essential....
Great choices, I should have added those already but forgot to! The Illustrated SW Universe always has a special place with me and even if the art is in the McQuarrie book, its texts alone warrant its inclusion. Wildlife also is a one of a kind gem indeed. I'd have added way more books if I could, but some simply had only a section or few bits that fit the bill but the rest of the book was not up to that section, so I had to leave some good candidates out. But your choices are spot on. Maybe I should go for a Top 20 next time! And if including articles and online content it gets even crazier.
The New Essential Guide to Characters. I used that book so much that my first copy fell to pieces. And lol at the “new” part - that thing is twenty years old now! And Inside the Worlds Of/Complete Locations books for the movies. I used to spend hours and hours poring over the detailed images of buildings, bases and other locations, maps and all the annotations.
The NEGtC is great, I really appreciate how much it integrated Marvel into the broader EU. Releasing it halfway through the prequels and NJO was a pretty strange decision, though. It's too bad the third edition never made it out.
At that time, they were releasing one Essential Guide a year, starting with the first Characters guide in 1995. The first series had ended in 2001 with the Alien Species book. It was time to start over, and since the Characters one was the oldest, they began with updating that.
I still miss that the art for the third edition and other cancelled books was completely done and never released. 100 character pieces of some never before seen ones even. They should have used them elsewhere at least then but never did.
I would put in the complete cross sections series as they were just brilliant for technical drawings. The complete locations are also good, but I would take cross sections over those.
That reminds me, I also forgot to nominate the Star Wars Technical Journals and its collected volume. Also a true gem!
The Secret History of Star Wars, though be warned that you might look at the classic movies differently after reading it. If you can find copies of them, the Official Poster Monthlies from the late '70s are an excellent way to appreciate the fan community mindset surrounding the original theatrical runs.
Or read them off this very site: https://www.theforce.net/timetales/misc/arcana/arcana.asp though some of the scans are slightly off-centre in places.
