Floating Mountains: The Art of Imagining the Impossible by Disney Imagineer, Joe Rohde | Photo Disney Parks Blog
Disney's latest Book of the Month pick is a good one for anyone who loves peeking behind the curtain at Imagineering, and it comes straight from one of the most recognizable names in the field. Joe Rohde, the Imagineer behind Disney's Animal Kingdom and Disneyland's Disney California Adventure Grizzly Peak areas, has a new title called Floating Mountains, The Art of Imagining the Impossible, and it's set to make its first public appearance at D23, The Ultimate Disney Fan Event.
“I believe that every creative person should be constantly accumulating knowledge, pure knowledge for the sake of knowledge itself.”
What Floating Mountains Is About
Rather than a straightforward memoir or design portfolio, Floating Mountains reads more like a working notebook from Rohde's own career. Disney Publishing describes it as a mix of stories, creative exercises, and science, illustrated throughout with photos and sketches pulled from decades of Imagineering work. Rohde himself put it well when he said the book "weaves together stories, creative exercises, and science, it's serious and funny and practical and whimsical.” That range is exactly what makes his design philosophy so distinctive, whether he's talking about jungle canopies or roller coaster pacing.
One passage from the book's fourth chapter gives a good sense of the mindset readers can expect throughout. Rohde writes, "I believe that every creative person should be constantly accumulating knowledge, pure knowledge for the sake of knowledge itself." It's a line that doubles as a mission statement for the whole book, and it tracks with how Rohde has talked about his own process in interviews over the years.
A Hardback Copy of Floating Mountains by Joe Rohde | Photo Disney Parks Blog
Available for Pre Order Now
Floating Mountains is currently available for pre order through Disney Publishing (also: my Amazon affiliate link), with copies first landing in fans' hands at D23 this month. If you're headed to Anaheim for the convention, keep an eye out for a signing or panel appearance tied to the release, since Disney typically pairs a splashy new Imagineering book with some kind of in person moment for the author.
For everyone watching from home, this is a solid one to add to a pre order list alongside anything else on your D23 radar this year.
Why Physical Books Still Matter Here
Disney Publishing's framing around this release leans into something worth calling out. The book's marketing points to research suggesting that reading from a physical book leads to better retention, deeper knowledge absorption, and stronger emotional connection compared to reading the same material on a screen. I think deep down we all know this to be true.
In fact, the sonography department at my wife’s college recently reverted to hand written assignments and note taking. They observed a downward trend in test scores and program completion when students started using iPads in the courses.
For a book built around Rohde's creative process, that framing makes sense. A lot of his design work is tactile and sensory by nature, so it tracks that Disney would want the book experience to feel the same way.
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Joe Rohde at the Floating Mountains Panel at D23
Planning Around D23
If your D23 itinerary is already packed with panels, pavilion visits, and merchandise drops, it's worth carving out a few minutes at the Disney Publishing area to flip through Floating Mountains in person before deciding whether to add it to your stack. Books like this tend to sell out of any limited signed editions fast, so early birds will have the best shot at a personalized copy.
Whether you pick it up at the show or wait for your pre order to ship, Floating Mountains looks like one of the more thoughtful reads to come out of this year's Disney Publishing slate, and a nice companion piece if you're already diving into everything else D23 2026 has planned.
A Good Fit for Aspiring Imagineers
If you've got a young reader at home who dreams of working for Walt Disney Imagineering someday, this feels like an obvious title worth putting in front of them early. Rohde's career spans some of the most ambitious storytelling work Disney has ever attempted, from the sweeping landscapes of Disney's Animal Kingdom to the layered detail of Grizzly Peak, and his writing tends to treat curiosity itself as the real skill worth building.
When I was a Disney College Program CM in 2006, I got the chance to hear Joe speak about Expedition Everest. This new attraction was about to open at Disney’s Animal Kingdom and I was one of a few Cast Members who attended a short lecture about his teams experience researching and imagining this new ride!
And, yes, that also means I experienced the Yeti in all its original moving glory! haha.
More to the point, the lecture was inspiring and motivating, especially to younger me. To get a glimpse of his thought process and management philosophies aren’t easily forgotten. Books that pull back the curtain on how that kind of large scale creative work actually happens are rarer than you'd think, especially ones written directly by the Imagineer who led the project rather than a third party author summarizing it after the fact.
Alright, that’s all for now. See ya next time.
