tThis is partially a biography but also shows an insight of what Trump is thinking about in the heat of a deal. It starts out giving a week of his life explaining his daily habits. But, where it really gets to be about the serious business life as we know is when he explains the “Elements of The Deal”. He gives characteristics of a quality deal-making situation and how he uses it in his profession. Then he has flashbacks of the good times of his juvenile days in New York growing up with his family and looking up to his father, Fred Trump, a hard-working and hard man. Through those times he became the high stakes man he is today and begins to further explain how one can become a man like he. But, he does this in an implicit way through how he goes about the deals that were taking place at the time. Insightful look into perhaps the nation's most talked about man.

t***** 5 out of 5 stars, Honestly, I really don’t believe too many people these days would like this book unless you are interested in the heavy deal-making strategies necessary to learn to be successful. Millennials feel as if they are entitled to being successful, but never do the work to support their case. Not many people my age (just after Y2K) will be able to fully read this with 100% of their attention. And that’s sad, because this is a book not one person should pass up. It’s like having a front row seat to a deal-making speech. There is always evolution happening. From the first contact of the client, to the final signing of the contract.

tIf you’re into making money and hardcore business grinding, this novel is a godsend to you. I mean it literally gives you the eleven essentials to being successful and becoming an A-list businessman (The Elements of the Deal 45). This is a classic, timeless, and important how-to for real estate or business. This is recommended to ages 14 and up, unless you have some sort of business outlet in your life like I had, my father. It may become boring to read for the ones who need action just to be able to read a book. It’s always better to have a little prior knowledge, but to really be able to comprehend this book, that is essential. Best book I have ever read.

Trump is the hero when he is controlling the narrative. This book was actually a pretty entertaining read. If you are into real estate, then I highly recommend it. It was very cool to see the way Trump built his real estate empire. He is definitely an interesting figure.

Now he is the president and there is one key difference: he's no longer controlling the narrative. He attempts to by tweeting and lashing out at his enemies. Unfortunately for him, reality is the narrative now, and he is out of his wheelhouse. The man obviously had the real estate business in the bag, and probably thought running the country couldn't be so different. I get it, I often think myself how I might run the country. Luckily for me, I don't actually have to.

I must say I'm definitely glad to be done with the book. I enjoyed it, but I was so embarrassed to be reading it in public. When asked what I was reading, I'd often answer with a far less embarrassing title, like Fifty Shades of Grey or something like that.

This book presents the version of Trump that he wants to be perceived as, or maybe this is how he sees himself. So it is not entirely reliable as a testament to his character, but there are many telling moments in the book that foreshadow his infamous future. The whole book was worth it just for those moments. As the real-estate mogul, Trump would con, but he would deliver. As president I feel he has already conned us, I'm just waiting for the delivery.

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.

If you are looking for a concrete explanation of this man, you will not find it here. While Mr. Trump writes eloquently of buildings that reach up for the stars, he says nothing substantive of his dreams or his nightmares. His inner life remains opaque to us. Defined by the baroque, Mr. Trump constructs a monument to himself in “Art of the Deal,” and like so many casinos and hotels, it offers little beyond its glossy mass-produced surface.

A remarkable treatise authored by a modern day Anglo-Saxon king.

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.

He didn't write it. You can tell he didn't write it, but I don't care I'm fascinated by casinos, bargaining with government officials and the construction of mass skyscrapers. If you like business then you'll enjoy this book, if you buy this book because of his presidency you will not like this book. Its purely business and there's a lot of details that slip through the cracks but all in all it's a decent read.

Plus I absolutely adored the Wollman Rink section, absolutely fantastic.

Tremendous book! I didn’t expect much but I was very much positively surprised. Some really good insights into the world of business and dealmaking. I also found Trump’s unique vocabulary and way of simplifying things hilarious. He seemed like a much nicer person in the book than in the world of politics. I liked how he always first highlighted the positive characteristics of his enemies and competitors and started them bashing and pointing out the mistakes they made only afterwards. Worth a read!

Trump is the same guy he always was but now compromised by the Russians and showing signs of dementia. His ghostwriter (who later shared his regrets in the New Yorker) captures Trump’s voice and spirit and hints at his limitations. I have suffered from anxiety since Trump got into national politics, culminating in the election. At this point, the more I read about him, the less anxious I feel. He’s just a guy flubbing his way through his second year as leader of our waning superpower. He gets stymied by his attempts at force, bluster and intimidation. Thanks to his (de)mentors on the altreich, he is now firmly in the populist, pandering, anti-expert fringe of talkers rather than doers. His GOP is a monstrosity of warped, unrecognizable “conservativism. ”Everything Trump Touches Dies” (Rick Wilson)

Love/Hate Relationship with the MSM
Any publicity is good publicity. His narcissism would greatly prefer good press, but he’ll settle for Twitter wars. Ignore him and he withers. He has been trained by the media for decades to whine and provoke. He didn’t need to raise money for campaign ads, after all.

Victimization
“you’ve got to take a stand or people will walk all over you.”
“I fight when I feel I’m getting screwed, even if it’s costly and difficult and highly risky.” Trade War with China? Bring it! Confrontation with DPRK, F*ck yeah!
When Trump claims, “…if your name is Donald Trump, everyone in the world seems to want to sue you,” I think he means I have to sue everyone before they get me first.

Moral Fiber
“…it’s a lot better to side with a winner than a loser.”

Future Trump Cabinet (ironically)
“…hire the best from the best.”

How to Get him to Resign
“…you have to convince the … guy it’s in his interest to make the deal.”
“…leverage came from confirming an impression they were already predisposed to believe.”

Management Pearls
“[I]t’s never as good as doing it yourself.” Being our president alone is HARD.
“…you can trust family in a way you can never trust anyone else.” In Trumpworld, nepotism will bring peace to the Middle East and just about everything else.
“In our organization, anyone with any questions could bring it directly to me and get an answer immediately.” Such discipline and diligence! Wow.
“You can get any job done through sheer force of will—and by knowing what you’re talking about.” Should be the State Department moto at this point.

Baby Steps Toward Whataboutism
“…if someone asks me what negative effects the world’s tallest building might have on the West Side, I turn the tables and talk about how New Yorker’s deserve the world’s tallest building and what a boost it will give the city to have that homor again.”

Developing a Money-laundering Business Model
“Many wealthy foreigners didn’t have the proper social references for these cooperatives, or they didn’t want to put themselves through the scrutiny of a bunch of prying strangers. Instead, they came to us.” At Trump Tower Condos.
In 1987 “…Goscomintourist …expressed an interest in pursuing a joint venture to construct and manage a hotel in Moscow.” Travelling there “was an extraordinary experience“ the kind one regrets every morning before firing off angry, projecting Tweets.

Mad Self-Assessment Skills
“I like to pride myself on rolling with the punches.” Yeah, like a punk 12-year-old.
“You don’t act on impulse—even a charitable one—unless you’ve considered the downside.” Hahaha
“Bullies may act tough, but they’re really closet cowards.” He’s been openly projecting his psychology for decades. No new tricks.

A few days ago I come across this story about how the author, Robert Caro, was among the prominent NYC West Side residents that fought the construction of something called Television City that Donald Trump wanted to build on the Hudson River in the late 1980s. The complex would have included new TV studios for NBC as well as the largest skyscraper in the world. Not only had I never heard of this project, I had in the last few years read Caro’s classic biography of Robert Moses, The Power Broker. It occurred to me that Donald Trump ascension was almost immediately after Moses’s demise and although Moses was a city planner and Trump a developer there was some personality overlap that I bet bothered Caro. These were guys that willed things into existence because they wanted what they wanted, consequences be damned. With all of that in mind I picked Trump: Art of the Deal to see what happened.

I had vaguely known that Trump’s father developed outer borough properties and Donald chose Manhattan to make his own mark in the world. He even mentions at some point that sons of great men often reject their father’s business as too hard to live up to. He says this somewhere in the middle of the book, but I got the feeling that his accomplishments and failures have been a response to that challenge to live up to Fred Trump. You get no hint of rivalry. What you get is a son who wants to be so good his hard-scrabble father will have to acknowledge it. At the heart of his father’s influence is a blue-collar sensibility embodied as a pro-business New York Democrat. Trump is not very political in the book. He will praise Mario Cuomo. He finds Jimmy Carter inept and Ronald Reagan suspect. The mayor of New York, Ed Koch, is his major nemesis in the city, less for ideology and more publicity and ego. His ideology is trying to accomplish things other people scoff at.

Later on Trump will overextend and failed deals and bankruptcies will be the story. Here though is the First Act of his life where the towers go up and the future looks very bright. Boy Gets Girl. The girl he chases and wins is Trump Tower although several other projects are detailed. That Television City project will play out in another book when he loses the biggest deal he ever envisioned. I suppose Act Three is the Apprentice and the turbulent presidency which either ends in tragedy or triumph depending on how things play out. No stage play could be bettered structured.

I think the legacy of this book and the celebrity it brought gave him a different product to market, namely himself, and that was the foundation of his personal comeback.

Things I learned and surmised:

-Trump’s general worldview was fully formed by the 1980s when this book was written. He didn’t like how our trade deals favored the Japanese so therefore his opposition to the TPP back in 2016 wasn’t a new idea for him.

- He takes a swing at Reagan’s arms build-up and military spending suggesting that his Ron Paul / Dennis Kucinich approach to foreign policy is not new either. His demands that NATO pay their fair share is consistent with his 1980s worldview. He treats that alliance like a deal he will walk away from if the terms stop favoring the USA.

- His flirtations with the Clintons a decade ago seem to be his desire to find the old kind of Democrat he feels most comfortable around. After the election of Obama, further globalism soured him on most Democrats and Republicans in office. But he understood as Bloomberg recently found out, that no billionaire will win the Democrat nomination in the Occupy Wall Street era so he ran as a Republican.

- I predict after he leaves office he’ll likely be a vocal opponent of the next Republican president unless it’s Mike Pence or a globalism skeptic. I think the Democrats that want to impeach him now will find his criticism of Republicans very quotable and all the Hitler memes will fade from memory.

- I guess if the Television City deal worked, he wouldn't have been president at all and thus he wouldn't have had the opportunity to call his biggest tenant, Fake News.

i've been told by english teachers at universities and schools all over the world that THIS BOOK is the NUMBER 1 TOP BOOK IN ALL THE BOOK RATINGS. this novel has been translated into more languages than that LOSER Gatsby was. A big "DEAL!!"

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.