Randall Hansen, author of Fire and Fury: the Allied Bombing of Germany has been delighted to see his 2009 title hit the bestseller list. Some hapless readers, unable to find Trump’s name anywhere inside, are less delighted.
This mix-up is one of the unforeseen results of Michael Wolff’s Fire and Fury: Inside the Trump White House, a 336-page flame of the president. The Guardian published revelations from Wolff’s work on 3 January and the book, decorated with Trump’s signature off-kilter grimace, leapt to number one on Amazon, iBooks and the New York Times bestseller list. The next day, Trump’s team issued a cease-and-desist letter to Wolff and Henry Holt, his publisher. Holt moved up the launch by four days citing “unprecedented demand” of over a million pre-orders, but they were understandably keen to pre-empt legal action.
TimelineFire and Fury
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Michael Wolff meets Donald Trump at Trump Towers and suggests writing a behind-the-scenes book about his time at the White House. After some persuading, Trump agrees. Wolff bases himself near the White House and enjoys extensive access to staff members through a year of research and writing.
The Guardian reveals details of Wolff's book, named Fire and Fury and due for release the following week, with a report saying Steve Bannon called a Trump Tower meeting between aides including Donald Trump Jr and a group of Russians "treasonous".
Trump lashes out at his former adviser, Bannon, saying he “has nothing to do with me or my presidency”. White House press secretary Sarah Sanders condemns the book as “trashy tabloid fiction”.
Trump’s lawyers accuse Bannon of breaking a non-disclosure agreement by speaking to Wolff and issue a cease and desist letter in an unprecedented attempt to stop publication. Bannon, meanwhile, appeared to be rowing back on his comments, calling Trump “a great man” during a radio phone-in a day earlier.
Fire and Fury is released early after White House lawyers try to block its publication. Revelations in the book cast doubts over the US president’s mental health.
Trump mounts an extraordinary defence of his mental state, boasting on Twitter of being a “very stable genius”.
In a statement of lavish praise for the president, Bannon says he did not mean to call Trump's son 'treasonous' – just Paul Manafort, Trump's campaign chair at the time of the Trump Tower meeting.
Bannon steps down as executive chairman of far-right website Breitbart after expressing regret over his remarks about Trump.
Trump continues to attack Wolff on Twitter, calling his book "fake' and the author 'mentally deranged'.
Another unexpected result of Wolff’s fiery and furious oh-no-you-didn’t rant-all is a pronounced sales bump for Trump-related literature. Here’s a look at what’s coming soon in beltway-lettres, from the political to the personal, the rabidly anti to the cultishly devoted, the scholarly to the profane:
It’s Even Worse Than You Think: What the Trump Administration Is Doing to America by David Cay Johnston
This is not a love letter to the Donald. Johnston, a journalist who’s tracked Trump for 30 years, analyzes how the current administration is remaking the federal government in Donald’s image and, wait for it, “making America worse again”. Johnston describes the Trump administration as “political termites who have infested our government … destroying it from within and compromising our jobs, safety, finances, and more”. If the book is half as entertaining as this editorial review, it promises to be a keeper. According to Johnston, the border wall will be financed by a tariff, which means American citizens will ultimately foot the bill through higher prices on Mexican goods – your Corona will be so expensive you won’t be able to afford the lime.
Trump’s First Year by Michael Nelson
This is a balanced look at the successes and failures of Trump’s first year in office by a noted political scientist. As Nelson contends, Trump took office under promising conditions: no war, solid economy, both houses of Congress under Republican control. He successfully cut back on government regulation and saw his supreme court pick, Gorsuch, swiftly confirmed. In other respects, however, the president’s freshman report card has been plagued by failure and even “threats to a safe, functional democracy”. Trump scored lower grades on North Korea, immigration, legislative pratfalls, and the revolving-door program for White House staffers.
Understanding Trump by Newt Gingrich and Eric Trump
This book takes a more upbeat view of the president. This study comes from America’s most astute salamander-named political thinker and reality star/America’s Third Child. Gingrich’s contention is that Trump is unique in American history and, as blurbed, “marks a profound change in the trajectory of American government, politics, and culture”. Trump is the only president who wasn’t first an elected official, military leader, or had hair color from the visible light spectrum. If Trump differs from traditional politicians, Gingrump says, it’s because his character was shaped by the institutional culture of business, finance and real estate.
American Grand Strategy in the Age of Trump by Hal Brands
From Hal Brands, a “leading scholar of Grand Strategy”, which is apparently a thing, these essays examine America’s geopolitical platform from cold war to Trump. Brands’ work is highbrow political philosophy rather than ideological screed, personally motivated attack or advertorial. America and its place in the world order, Brands writes, is more uncertain than ever. He addresses the role of Trump and the “America First” policy in relation to this dynamic and explores the emerging role of America in world affairs.
Trump’s ABC by Ann Telnaes
Telnaes is a Pulitzer-winning cartoonist for the Washington Post. Her new book, an anthology of “scathing” political cartoons about Trump, is marketed to adults but composed in a nursery-rhyme cadence and formatted like a child’s board book. One might assume that this is analogous to the adult coloring book craze or the dumbing-down of public discourse. However, the Amazon blurb calls it a “critique and exposé of Donald Trump and his janissaries, poltroons, and dissemblers, illustrating his public policies, his personal defects, his ethical dysfunction, and the consequences of his Presidency on the lives of Americans – in a format that is cleverly designed to reflect the commander-in-chief ’s attention span and mental level”. So no, this is an utterly grownup text. Even mature, erudite readers might have to pretend to know the meaning of janissary.
This is only a taste.
From Trump: Putin on the Hits to Trump’s Christmas Carol: God Help Us, Everyone!, Donald-related content just keeps a-comin’, almost literally by the second. Predictably, many of these books are perfunctory cash-ins on a trending topic. According to an Amazon keyword search, there have been 4,514 English-language books (and counting) about Trump since he assumed office, compared with a mere 826 Obama titles during his debut year.
Not everyone expected the Trump presidency to be so literate. The Donald has set off a zealous, ongoing debate regarding language, free speech, culture, knowledge and truth. According to Michael Wolff “100% of the people around [Trump]” think he’s unfit for office. This may or may not be true, but it seems as though 100% of us are searching for the answer.