Review

This doesn't read like Trump at all and it shows. It is very clear from the manner in which it is written that Schwartz more than probably followed Trump around on his daily errands and wrote down what he did, occasionally picking up a lesson from Trump on how he makes his deals which Schwartz had to somehow expound upon without sounding like an idiot.

The lessons in the book are interesting and are presented not as axioms but more as best suited to the archetype of Trump. That being said, what lessons the book does have are spread very thinly throughout the book. The book is a strange mixture of autobiography, financial advice and self-promotion. Trump presents a series of general principles based on deals he has made and has chosen not to make, suggesting going with your "gut feeling" if something doesn't feel right. Despite this, he advises on multiple occasion that one ought to think big and extravagantly, shamelessly self-promoting but not so much that you become melodramatic and perhaps even fail to deliver the goods, he criticises Jimmy Carter for this.

Trump talks about a series of deals he has made growing up, beginning with working with his father and redoing old homes in the outer Burroughs. He hated working in such places as one had to interact with more rough crowds recollecting a memory of him going to collect rent alongside rent controllers only to be advised by the rent controller to stand at the side when ringing the bell for fear of being shot. As a result, Trump looks towards making buildings in the centre of Manhattan at a time when the city was dealing with a lot of rough problems and crime suspecting that the city will soon move upwards and that he ought to capitalise on hot locations. Trump bemoans his father's lack of idealism as showing him the development of Trump Tower only led his father to burst out (paraphrase) "Why don't you just make a few floors glass and the rest red-brick?!" Perhaps one of Trump's main pieces of advice is to know when one ought to spend big, he notes that hotels all throughout NYC have boring lobbies and reception desks and that to make one with extravagance no matter how expensive will only serve to profit in the long run, the building has to be iconic as does the name. In order to do this, he purchases luxurious pieces such as a 2 million dollar waterfall and maintains a cost of upkeep of 1 million dollars per year, shining the brass twice a month. This particular upkeep cost provided worry for his partners who owned half of the building so Trump bought them out.

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Humorously, Trump remembers when the media were calling non-stop to discover whether Prince Charles and Diana wanted to purchase one of his apartments in the Tower, instead of saying no, he chose to say no comment, resulting in a media storm which couldn't be quenched because they were both on holiday and the Buckingham Palace press secretary himself couldn't confirm or deny. Trump offers this as one of his main tricks, allow the media to publicise you, stating multiple times that even bad/false publicity is still publicity.

The book is written simply without verbose language and keeps to a conversational manner. This works well and lessens the likelihood of boredom but this attempt to keep itself conversational to make all the facts digestible faltered in that what lessons it did have were very few. One of the main faults is not being able to envision Trump himself repeating what is in the book, its simplicity and polished nature doesn't lend itself to Trump. Another problem is that Trump never goes into detail about the actual processes behind a deal, instead, he focuses on the macro-level stuff, such as pointing out many instances where he got "lucky" by winning court cases and having the city on his side. He may occasionally mention contractors and suppliers and having to do deals with them but what does that involve really, what are the actual details? Trump doesn't say. Although, Trump does on a few occasions provide some interesting tips on how to play potential sellers and city planning laws. When attempting to purchase the Mar-a-Lago, Trump started with a strong offer but was rejected, instead of raising his offer, he incrementally lowered it as other attempts at buying the place fell through from other potential buyers. Eventually, the trust accepted his offer for $5million, Trump claims that even the furniture inside was worth more. Trump offers other examples but I shall not mention them for the preservation of time.

Ultimately, a pleasant read which required little effort and an interesting look into Trump's life. I have no doubt that Trump didn't write it and that much of the supposed clean deals that went so well were perhaps more arduous than presented. Some interesting lessons are provided but such lessons require some contextual understanding as to simply rely on Trump's gut feeling doesn't give the reader much and can lend itself to confirmation bias. It is an Autobiography above anything else and to be fair, a clean cut one at that.

3/5

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I assume this book was written before you were born. What might even compound on confusion is the high chance you aren't from NY.

Let me remind you that he is called President Trump now.

saged for baiting

...

>This doesn't read like Trump at all and it shows.

Oh, I disagree.

The chapter on Revenge, for example. That reads like one of Trump's long extemporaneous raps during one of his hundreds of rallies. Moving from point to point quickly, sometimes not fully fleshing out an anecdote, but just touching on a couple of key points. The timing and the pace and the language -- it's all pure Trump, undiluted Trump, if his many hours of public extemporaneous talk are any basemark, and they obviously are.

That said, sure, the co-writer cleaned it all up, and polished it and made it grammatical.

But I really don't see how any one who is familiar with the Trump persona, as abundantly presented to us via his rallies - and, too, the humor and "mind games" reflected in his endless flow of tweets - could say that _The Art of the Deal_ "doesn't read like the real Trump."

Only the tone deaf could reach such a conclusion. And the tone deaf should not be hanging out in Veeky Forums.

...

Go read Shwartz' recent NYT article on ghost writing that book.
Trump has next to absolutely nothing to do with any word in it and he had to intentionally fill it with lies and embellishments to even have material. Schwartz exclaims that Trump has likely never actually read a book in his entire life, or made any real business deals.

If you actually believe that last sentence then no wonder you fell for his spotlight moment.

Even in Trump's articulation it seems as though he has never read a book, or completed high school English.

Schwartz is just being a good boy for the establishment bashing Trump.

Again, read the chapter Revenge in AOTD.

It is soaked in and veritably resonates with Trump's language, style, humor, and unique public persona.

I'm sure the finished product reflects Schwartz's valuable skills as a writer and editor, but both the style and the substance of the book is pure Trump, by which I mean, the Trump whom we all saw in his very extensive - amounting to some hundreds of hours - extemporaneous remarks during the campaign season.