Trump: The Art of the Deal

Our culture and our nation currently find themselves in a remarkably politically charged, volatile, angry, and sometimes utterly ignorant environment. So much so that one could potentially be labeled and stereotyped simply for reading this book and publicly posting same. With that said, I offer this brief review anyway.

Having been in the business world all my adult life, I don't know how I overlooked reading this book back when it was published. It's not really a biography; more like a dairy of some of Trump's bigger or more memorable business deals. Yes, he had the advantage of a father who was in the real estate business. Yes, Donald Trump has an ego. Yes, he can be arrogant, demanding, blunt, outspoken and much more. No one, absolutely no one, is lukewarm about him. Folks either voted for him, or they hate him beyond their ability to describe.

So just a quick word about the merits of this book. The man has clearly been a success in an incredibly tough city and industry. From the stories he recounts here, one can learn a lot about the challenges and rewards of commercial real estate and construction, the degree to which deals can be complicated and require patience, how to learn from the mistakes and overreaches of competitors, and much more. If a reader is able to put any personal prejudice aside, a lot can be learned about business in general from this book.

Interestingly, you'll also notice aspects of Trump's strategy and approaches to promotion that later served him well in the Presidential campaign. One example will suffice. When he set out to build Trump tower, there was an old existing building on the site, the Bonwit building, which had to be demolished. At the last minute, the Metropolitan Museum of Art expressed interest in saving two large Art-Deco sculptures on the exterior of the building. Trump was willing to donate them to the museum, but because the sculptures were so large and heavy, special scaffolding was required, and preserving them would've meant several weeks of costly delay. So naturally, Trump made a business decision and had them torn down.

What ensued was much public outrage and lots of bad press. But even the bad press still drew attention to the Trump Tower project, and caused an upsurge in demand for apartments when the Tower was completed. Notice Trump's take on the whole affair, which foreshadows his capturing of almost every news cycle in his Presidential campaign:

"I'm a businessman, and I learned a lesson from that experience; good publicity is preferable to bad, but from a bottom-line perspective, bad publicity is sometimes better than no publicity at all. Controversy, in short, sells."

In spite of the constant controversy that swirls around Donald Trump, I found this book to be a worthwhile and interesting read, with much insight into both the business world and the man himself.

Business porn for people who aren't in business. There are parts that are interesting for capturing specific moments in New York and Atlantic City history but since we know tons of the book was just made up (and Trump didn't even have the patience to sit through interviews), it's hard to take much away.

(I bear full responsibility for choosing to waste these hours of my life.)

Lol. As the Trump Presidency isn’t even a year old yet it would be premature to have any real biography on him and his presidency so I thought I may as well read the book that is identified most with him. It’s a pretty mediocre read, besides the fact that it’s sometimes hilarious. It’s nearly impossible for me to read read this and not hear it in his voice and some classic Trump shines through. It’s clear that this was not written by Trump but probably comes through a series of interviewers that Schwartz (the guy who co-wrote it) did with him. I suspect Schwartz did all the actual writing because Trump supposedly uses words like “byzantine” and “lark,” which is impossible for me to believe given what I have heard and seen of him. Regardless, there are lots of Trumpian moments in here and it served as a fascinating insight into the guy and you certainly see early signs of policy and political thought creeping in.
Every chapter basically discusses a different “deal” that he made and how it worked out. Of course, in all of these scenarios he comes out on top even when he actually loses. I don’t care about real estate or finance in any meaningful way so I didn’t care about the deals themselves, what I really wanted was to see Trump shine through. Which happened quite a few times every chapter.
Some things that were discussed in this book actually helped broadcast some policies or stances that he would take while president. There’s a paragraph where he off-handedly discusses making deals with Japanese businessmen and you see his protectionism and “unfair deal” language creep through there. His chapter on his USFL debacle sets up very nicely his hatred of the NFL which came out big time during the whole kneeling during the national anthem controversy. To his credit, he really did get screwed by them and all sports leagues are monopolies in the US, but they are essentially the only monopolies allowed fo exist.
Lastly, there were some things that aged hilariously. Like his complimenting of various politicians of political thinkers that would go on to become his political rivals or enemies. Besides Ed Koch, it appears he and Trump never got along. These little things though demonstrate not only Trump’s fickleness, but the fickleness of many others involved.
Overall, I’m really only giving this book three stars because it made me laugh. If it wasn’t so funny in hindsight it would only be okay for the reason that it is an interesting character study and window into the future of Trump from 1987.

This is an incredible book that explains how deals work. Trump is the master of getting the most out of every single deal. A concept I noticed throughout the book; it pays to be patient.

I read The Art of the Deal as quickly as I could. Aside from the book's obvious—and shocking—historical significance, I picked up a copy mostly because I realized that I could buy it at a Chinese bookstore for less money than the price listed on the back of the paperback. I spent most of my time reading the book wearing my gorgeously comfortable pussyhat. For a bookmark, I used a bundle of Chinese banknotes, valued at about 30 US cents.

Which all goes to say that I had some obvious political biases heading into this book.

The Art of the Deal is a difficult book to rate. There's the documented fact that much of the book, to borrow a phrase from Trump/Schwartz' tome, indulges in "truthful hyperbole," or to borrow a phrase from a more recent Trump associate, "alternative facts," or to call it as it is, "bullshit." It exists in some medium between fiction and nonfiction; should I judge it as a work of fiction or judge it on whether or not it teaches me the slightest thing about dealmaking? There's the fact that the entire thing is... let's just say colored by recent events. And the fact that a huge chunk of the book is dedicated to bragging about deals Trump made which would ultimately lead to massive losses (as in the case of his Atlantic City casinos) or which would never come to fruition (the book's closing chapter, about Trump's proposed but never built Television City development, takes on an ironically bittersweet tone that the man himself could never have intended). And that's without delving into the fact that, by all accounts, Donald Trump didn't write a sentence of The Art of the Deal—the entire thing was written by Tony Schwartz, making The Art of the Deal an admittedly impressive exercise in the sustained adoption of another's distinctive writing voice (though, unlike much of Trump's recent output, The Art of the Deal has been spellchecked).

As a tome about making deals, The Art of the Deal underwhelms. Well, I want to say that I was underwhelmed; the truth is that I had zero expectations for The Art of the Deal's potential as a crash course in the art of deal-making. And let me just say, this book lived up to all of those expectations, though it did not manage to exceed said expectations, even in the slightest (so, yeah, it's useless). Ignoring the fact that so many of the deals discussed in the book didn't end up working out so hot for the Donald, Trump/Schwartz fail to illuminate the mysteries of being a successful businessman. I believe the keys to make a lot of money are to be persistent, have functional common sense, and have really good connections and access to funds that the average person doesn't have. There is a chapter ("Trump Cards") where Trump/Schwartz outline some advice for potential entrepreneurs, but it comes across as kind of very half-assed, speeding through a minefield of bullet points so the author(s) can get to the good stuff. To describe Trump Cards as surface level would be overly generous; even more insultingly, the specifics of the chapter are never mentioned again. Excise the chapter from the book and you change nothing about the overall manuscript.

That's because The Art of the Deal is not about how to make deals. Face it: unless your name is Donald Trump, you just won't ever be as spectacular as Donald Trump. Sad. But by reading The Art of the Deal, you can get a sense of what it was like to be Donald Trump, at least before all of his businesses blew up in his face. You can read about all the wonderful and famous people Donald Trump knows and how much they like Donald Trump, except for the losers and corrupt politicians who probably just have an insecurity complex. You can read about how Donald Trump's buildings are the best and biggest. You can read about how Donald Trump's house is the best. How Donald Trump's wife is the best. You can read about how big Donald Trump's deals are. How much money he makes.

And most importantly, you can read the myth of Donald Trump, the self-made ultra-American success story.

Because, really, that's what The Art of the Deal ought to be judged as: not a book on making deals, not as an autobiography, but as an exercise in mythmaking. This is the book that led to The Apprentice. This is the book that led to the current nightmare of an administration occupying the White House. And is it not revealing.

Let the factual record supported by all the mainstream media liars and bigots say what it will; in The Art of the Deal, readers can experience the true story of how Donald Trump's sheer force of personality was all that he needed to get his first hotel deal in New York City (his father's interference? never mentioned). Readers can learn about how impeccable his instincts are when it comes to the casino business (the book does mention some problems which had already arisen, but specifics are light and the overall emphasis is on how brilliant Trump is). And obviously Donald Trump has never violated any laws; all hearsay and slander spread by those who are envious!

The book's tone is somewhat gentler than I'm making it seem. The truly terrifying part of The Art of the Deal is that, by all accounts, The Art of the Deal is a sanitized portrait of the Donald, gentler and less narcissistic than the real deal. Yet even in sanitized, thirty-years-ago form, so much of Trump today is recognizable. Success is determined by dollars and cents—winning. The government's role is to encourage developers to build beautiful buildings. Human emotions are unimportant. And nobody, nobody is as special, as brilliant, as wonderful and gold-plated and luxurious as Donald.

So, no, The Art of the Deal is not a great book. It's an abject failure at the two genres it aspires to—memoir and business advice tome. The writing frequently feels sloppy, but in a way that enhances its authenticity. But The Art of the Deal was—and is—a tremendously effective text that people will (unfortunately) be reading and studying for years to come.

My best friend in high school gave me a copy of this book. She really loved Trump and wanted to be like him, and would frequently talk about him with me and how great of a business person Trump is. I didn’t really know much about business then and didn’t particularly care. But now that I’m older I am much more interested. Since he was recently re-elected president I figured there is probably no better time to read his book. It is ghost written by a guy named Tony Schwartz who did a superb job translating how Trump speaks to words on the page. So when you read you really get the sense it is Trump speaking to you, even if it was written and organized by someone else. I enjoyed the style but I can imagine if you don’t like the way Trump speaks or dislike his character it could be very annoying.

I was struck by a few similarities to other books I have read. I recently finished American Psycho by Brett Easton Ellis and I can only imagine he read this book before writing his novel. The syntax and diction are not translated one-to-one but there is enough similarity to suspect that at the very least Ellis’ novel was very well researched considering the number of times Trump is mentioned. I would recommend reading this before or alongside American Psycho because I think they could make a great compliment together, even though I found that novel sickening because of the violence. There is also an interesting similarity with Benjamin Franklins autobiography. Benjamin Franklin was in the printing and newspaper business, whereas Trump is in real estate. But both cover the early life of these men and then mostly focus on their business deals and business history, sprinkled with advice and their thoughts on human nature. Not to say these men are the same, but the structure of the book felt very familiar. This is a modern book and is much more refined in its structure, obviously.

In terms of the character of Trump I wasn’t sure what kind of person he was or whether or not I would like him or his book. But after reading this I do like him a lot and especially his worldview/attitude/instinct. He cares about winning, about victory, and I agree with him and think this is really all that is important at the end of the day. I know a lot of guys who have fantasies about being romantic losers. Like Oswald Spenglers idea of the legionary who dies at his post protecting Pompeii, even while volcanic ash consumes him from above, or the captain who goes down with the ship. No thanks, maybe thats for you, but not for me. There is nothing great about that. Romantic losers are losers, and I don’t want to be a loser. I would rather be a cockroach who survives nuclear armageddon, or a blood sucking parasite who lives off of the labor of others, than a beautiful loser. Parasites and vermin have been around forever, and often outlive their hosts. 



One of the strangest claims he makes in the book, and the most flattering personally, is the claim he is of Swedish extraction. This he knowingly lies about, so blatantly, I don’t know what to think. There are a lot of records of his grandfather being German and his own father speaking German at home. But I don’t blame him for wanting to distance himself from Germany because of the association with national socialism and hitler. Calling yourself German must be very tough because of the dark aura it now carries with it and I feel very sorry for people who have that burden. It clearly affects people very negatively. I think his ancestral claim is nonsensical but it also makes sense because so many of the most beautiful and coveted women were Swedish in the circles he was operating in, and one of his most charitable allies, Walter Hoving, was Swedish. So to him the association was very positive.

His teachings are insightful and inspiring. Learning to farm attention from others, that ability to create controversy, heat, and press about yourself, to get people talking, is much more valuable than any marketing/advertising you pay for, which generally makes people very skeptical. It’s a very valuable skill that causes a lot of stress and takes a lot of courage. And the incredible thing about him is his ability to outlast everyone that criticizes him. He has this ability to galvanize people, to make them talk about him non-stop, relate everything back to him in some way, and he is totally unaffected by them. While his detractors are seething and still emotionally recovering he has achieved his goal, he has moved on, because his mission was to upset you. He is a brilliant troll.

Unfortunately he doesn’t spend enough time talking about his ideas and instead talks about all of the deals he’s made, the many mistakes he’s made and the lessons he has learned along the way. I am not particularly interested in real estate but his enthusiasm and vision is so infectious it’s hard not to get excited when he talks about building. I was really determined to give this 2 stars because it was just okay in a lot of areas. There is a lot of stuff that I didn’t find particularly engaging and I wouldn’t have finished it if I hadn’t switched to listening. But towards the end he starts making fun of fat people, which I found very very funny. I wish he had spent more time making fun of fat people, and other people who should be made fun of, instead of focusing so closely on business. I had this vision in my head that he was a horrible person who would say some very unkind things, which I think I would have enjoyed more. Instead I found him relatively humble, willing to acknowledge and admit mistakes, and frequently praising others so adoringly it’s hard to imagine it is genuine, but I think he really is this way. Since the bulk of the book are stories and many are still entertaining even if they aren’t particularly funny I’ll give this 3 stars, but only if you are listening to it.

What does the ghostwriter, Tony Schwartz, think about the book and the mythical figure he's helped create?

Initially when i started reading this book, it felt like to goody-goody commercial stuff. I put it aside while trying to comprehend what made me buy this book.

I returned to this book much later and as I started reading beyond the first 2 chapters, I could help but be captivated as I turned page after page after page.

I think the beauty of this books doesn't lies in the overly positive stories that Trump has sketched to make the book reader friendly (perhaps?). However, if you read between the lines, you will see that the reason to his success at that time was his unreal drive to achieve extraordinary goals. It becomes apparent that Trump has a penchant for going many extra miles to make his achievements truly stand out.

I found the book to a good read but maybe not in the way it was intended.