I really enjoyed The Art of the Deal. I’m reading its sequel, Surviving at the Top, at the moment. It’s not as well written and it jumps around more topic wise, but I think that it too is quite releaving about Trump. He was having a lot of financial and personal troubles when the book was written in 1990, and he seems pensive and unusually self-reflective in the first part of the book. (The second part of the book focuses on business interactions like The Art of the Deal, although he closes with a chapter entitled, “On Toughness.”) On the book’s first page, he says, “Life is a series of challenges,” and one could argue that is the overall theme for the book.
Thinking of his current campaign and its populist bent, I thought this was good quote: “the average working man or woman is a lot better adjusted and more secure than the supposedly successful people who stare down at them from the penthouses.” Another relevant one (considering the accusations made against him) is: “I’m not a crusader for feminism, and I’m not against it, either. I’m just oblivious to a person’s gender when it comes to hiring people and handing out assignments.” I personally found his discussion of Nixon to be interesting too, although the best parts of the book naturally are when he reveals things about himself. I also liked his political books (Time to Get Tough, The America We Deserve, and Crippled America).
It’s interesting that Trump has published more books than Obama.