NoirFan

I've just been getting into the 60's Star Trek on Blu-ray, and was wondering if there was a worthwhile, in-depth episode guide or behind the scenes book. I'm not interested in any philosophical, fictional, or sociological approaches, or memoirs from individual cast members. Thanks!

Sean O'Hara

The Nitpicker's Guide for Classic Trekkers -- not really behind-the-scenes, but lots of interesting notes for geeks.

Travis McClain

Last year, I read Inside Star Trek: The Real Story by Herb Solow and Robert Justman. It was published in the early 1990s. They were executives on the show and offer some insight that I hadn't heard from any of the actors or secondhand sources over the years. (For instance, even though the overall ratings were mediocre, they say that the ratings for the show among people who owned color TV's were very high.) It's not always flattering, but it's interesting.

milo bloom

Bjo Trimble's Concordance. Probably out of print.

The Okuda Chronology.

The World of Star Trek by David Gerrold

Star Trek Lives by Lichtenberg, Marshak and Winston

jdodd

If you go into it with a grain of salt, Shatner's "Star Trek Memories" is a good read.

xmiyux

This was my recommendation as well. It is a pretty entertaining book (and there were 2 volumes weren't there?).

Sean O'Hara

I know he did volumes for TNG and DS9, and there may be revised editions.

xmiyux

You are right - that is why i have 2 of them. TOS and TNG.

I also have the one he did for the X-Files.

Zbu

I can back this. Star Trek Memories by Shatner is a good read but a lot of it is so biased that it comes off as being unrealistic. I should check out Star Trek Movie Memories, but never got around to it.

davidh777

lots of info on the official web site too

iggystar

It's hilarious as well. I love both.

Jon2

If you can find it, try "The making of Star Trek" by Stephen E. Whitfield and Gene Roddenberry.

It was the very first behind-the-scenes book about Star Trek. I've still got the copy I picked up when it was originally published.

Straker

I'd recommend this as well. It was published between the 2nd & 3rd seasons (before the myth-making started in earnest) and contains a ton of interesting material on the background & development of the series. I got my copy when it was reprinted by Ballentine in the mid '70s.

Also recommended is The World Of Star Trek by David Gerrold, which was mentioned earlier. Gerrold also wrote a companion volume which covers, in depth, the writing & selling of his script for the episode The Trouble With Tribbles.

wendersfan

Back in the old days there were five books you had to have read multiple times. They've all been mentioned:

'Making'
'Tribbles'
'World'
'Lives'
'Trimble'

And that's how we referred to 'em.

Spiderbite

The final volume of "These Are The Voyages" just came out and the publisher's website is having a great sale on all three volumes. Signed by the author and all in hardcover (Amazon seems to be only carrying the softcover versions of the first two volumes now) for $67.95 plus shipping ($5 for an individual book and $10 for the set of three).

I highly recommend these books. I wished I had waited until this great sale but I feel they are even worth the list price.

http://www.thesearethevoyagesbooks.c...ector-set.html

danfindlay

The Art Of Juan Ortiz
This book certainly doesn't have any scholarly insight on Star Trek: TOS but it is pretty awesome nonetheless. The author creates a Mondo style poster for each of the original 79 episodes.

Sean O'Hara

Seconded. I've seen some fans nitpicking the books, but the problems they've found don't seem worse than the myth-making we get from official books. I doubt there's ever going to be anything else as detailed as this is.

Another book that just came out is Return to Tomorrow by a writer at Cinefantastique who covered the making of The Motion Picture back in '79 and ended up with more material than could fit in the magazine. The first edition is limited to a thousand copies and I don't know how many are left, but there's supposed to be a second edition coming.

Spiderbite

^That looks cool. Thanks for the post. It does say that Return To Tomorrow is sold out but the second edition is coming in the next few months. I will have to remember to check it out.

Shannon Nutt

The "These Are The Voyages" books are top-notch and not full of "fluff". I highly recommend them (granted, I only have the first two volumes, but I imagine the third will be just as good).

JCWBobC

I've had this book for a long time but with a red cover that was released for the 20th Anniversary. I used to have a bunch of the old paperback books but i'm not sure where they are now. A think they were called the Star Trek files or logs, I think I had an original book where Kirk fights an evil version of himself, and then some making of & behind the scenes books. I also had the original Technical manual in a black hard cover with gold lettering and one of the old Gold Key comic books.

http://www.amazon.com/Star-Trek-Comp...rek+compendium