The best book ever for understanding how Elevators work is a wonderful late 20th century work of fiction called The Intuitionist by Colson Whitehead, which was

The best book ever for understanding how Elevators work is a wonderful late 20th century work of fiction called The Intuitionist by Colson Whitehead, which was described by its author as what you would expect to happen if you let a child grow up reading elevator manuals.