Book #34: “The Art of the Deal” by Donald Trump

 

The Art of the Deal

Donald Trump 

with Tony Schwartz

 Released: November 1st, 1987

My 4th book for 2024 was Donald Trump’s “The Art of the Deal.  I went into this knowing it would be controversial.  Some of you are probably asking “Why would you ever read this?”  And my response is “Because you likely never will.”  We live in a world where so many people get their information 2nd hand.  I’m not here to argue politics or allow the emotionally-driven self-righteous to condemn me.  I’ve always pushed to learn and understand more about different people regardless of who they are or what the public perception is about them.  My belief is that to truly understand someone, let them show you how they want to be perceived by the world.  So I picked up his first book, and I read it.  While Tony Schwartz did help him write it, the tone is very much Trump.  

Trump does not have a presidential memoir yet, but he has a series of books he published in the 1980’s - 2000’s.  This was known for a long time as a business book.  I tried to read this a few years ago, but struggled.  This was before I developed my current reading structure.  Contrary to modern perception, Trump was a successful real estate developer in the 1970’s and 1980’s.  You have to take into account that this book was published in 1987, and well before Trump took on legal action, bankruptcy, and other things that defined the 1990’s for him, let alone presidential aspirations and successes in more recent history.  This book tells the tale of him growing up, accompanying his father to different properties around New York City, before propelling into his own as a figurehead of New York architecture, USFL ownership, and various other activities, while meeting and conducting business with others.  I also learned small things about Donald that explain his personality.  While his father Fred Trump was more into buying properties to fix up and rent out, Donald was more into building state-of-the-art structures.  He does carry a genuine sense of ambition and a “Get it done right and quickly” mentality.  He has accomplished some notable things.  There are some quotes that I found inspiring, and some interesting things I never knew, and verified for accuracy.  

As I stated with President Carter’s book, this is presented in objective style with Trump’s point of view establishing the information.  This is not meant to persuade to one ideology or another, but more for the information extracted from this book.

Here is what I learned:

—————

• Book is dedicated to his parents.

• The book was written in 1987, so will be seen in that light.

• Donald Trump considers deals to be his best art form.

• Trump doesn’t care for structure around his work day.  No briefcase, not too many meetings.  Leaving his door open.

• Trump usually starts his day around 6am reading newspapers.

• He gets to the office around 9am.

• He typically makes 50-100 telephone calls per day.

• When he holds meetings, they tend to be spur of the moment.

• He usually leaves his office by 6:30pm.

• He rarely stops for lunch.

• He’s usually on the phone mode of the evening and most of the weekend.

• “I try to learn from the past, but I plan for the future by focusing exclusively on the present.  That’s where the fun is.”

• Alan Greenberg, of Bear Sterns, was his investment banker for about 5 years at publication.

• Trump was a big investor in the Holiday Inn.

• Control of Holiday could be obtained for less than $2 Billion.

• Holiday Inn had (at the time) 300,000 hotel rooms, not counting their casino hotels.

• The first decision Trump comes to is whether to buy controlling stock of the company, and let it make him money owning it, or sell it back at a profit.

• Abraham Hirschfeld was a successful real estate developer who wanted to be a politician.

• Trump was friends with former New York Governor Mario Cuomo (D).

• Don Imus helped to raise money for the Annabel Hill Fund.

• Trump has a courtside box at the U.S. Open, but typically sends friends due to being busy.

• Trump was once the owner of the New Jersey Generals of the original USFL.

• “I don’t hold it against people that they have opposed me.  I’m just looking to hire the best talent, wherever I can find it.”

• Anthony Gliedman helped to coordinate the rebuilding of the Wollman Skating Rink in Central Park.  After falling behind, Trump took over the project to put it back on schedule.

• “If you’re right, you’ve got to take a stand, or people will walk all over you.”

• Trump considers going out for lunch a waste of time.

• Trump’s house in Palm Beach, FL is called Mar-A-Lago.

• Trump’s sister Maryanne Barry is a federal court judge in New Jersey.

• Trump Tower features a six-story marble atrium.

• Overall 100,000 people pass through the tower each week to shop.

• The flight from New Jersey to Sydney Australia is 24 hours.

• “As [children] get older, being a father get easier.”

• Trump lived and worked inside Trump Tower.

• After work, he always took the elevator upstairs to the residential section.

• Steve Rubell and Ian Schaefer created Studios 54 and the Palladium.

• Trump spent a lot of weekends in Los Angeles during the 1970’s.

• Trump states that bankers would meet with him to solicit business, knowing he always had multiple projects in the works and on the pipeline, and was a safe bet.

• Most of Trump’s cash flow in the 1980’s came from his casinos and condominiums.

• Charities such as United Cerebral Palsy and the Police Athletic League would solicit Trump to chair events since he could usually get some friends to buy a $10,000 table for dinner as donation to the cause.

• Trump isn’t big on parties as he does not care for small talk.

• He accepts parties as part of business, but tends to leave early.

• Trump enjoys the casino business for the scale, the glamour, and the cash flow.

• “If you know what you are doing and you run your operation reasonably well, you can make a very nice profit.  If you run it very well, you can make a ton of money.”

• The West Side Yards are a 78-acre stretch along the Hudson River.

• Trump bought the Commodore Hotel in 1974.

• Ivana Trump was Trump’s first wife.  

• She grew up in Czechoslovakia.

• She was a champion skier.

• They met at the 1976 Winter Olympics in Montreal.

• They married 10 months later in April 1977.

• Former Miami Dolphins running back Larry Csonka once contacted Trump with an idea of merging the Canadian Football League and the USFL, in hopes of saving the struggling league.

• Trump like the idea, but didn’t believe it would work.

• Trump viewed the NFL as a monopoly.

• Trump has admiration for Calvin Klein as he is a very good salesman and businessman to complement his talent as a designer.

• Trump used to write letters to his critics much to the dismay of his friends and family.

• “The way I see it, critics get to say what they want to about my work, so why shouldn’t I be able to say what I want to about theirs?”

• Despite doing so many times, Trump finds it ridiculous to have concrete postings for publicity.

• The pool at Mar-A-Lago was built specifically to keep with the original design of the house.

• Mar-A-Lago was built in the 1920’s by Marjorie Merriweather Post.

• Post was the heiress to the Post cereal fortune

• It sits on 20 acres that face the Atlantic Ocean and Lake Worth.

• It took 4 years to build, and has 118 rooms

• It features 36,000 Spanish tiles dating back to the fifteenth century on both the interior and exterior.

• Trump first tried to purchase it in 1982, but did not acquire it until 1985.

• When Mrs. Post died, it was given to the federal government as a presidential retreat (something it would return to in later years after Trump assumed the presidency, and later became his permanent home).

• Trump hates being called “Donny”.

• Trump was once asked to invest $50 million into a small oil company.  He didn’t feel right about it and declined.  Several months later, the company went bust and everyone lost their money.

• “Listen to your gut, no matter how good something sounds on paper.”

• “You’re generally better off sticking with what you know.”

• “Sometimes the best investments are the ones you don’t make.”

• Judith Krantz wrote 3 number-one best-selling books in a row.

• Donald and Trump Tower are featured in the novel “I’ll Take Manhattan” and he even filmed the role of himself in a scene shot and filmed in the building.

• Trump’s philosophy on hiring is “always hire the best from the best.”

• Trump is a stickler for cleanliness.

• Trump doesn’t enjoy doing press.

• He always doesn’t enjoy talking about his personal life.

• He tends to be very selective about who he answers questions to.

• Donald feels that a lot of modern art is a con, and that the most successful painters are often better salesmen and promoters than artists.

• When a city doesn’t approve of something he believes makes sense economically, he just waits for the next administration to try again.

• Cardinal O’Connor was a man of great warmth as well as a smart businessman with great political instincts.

• Trump prefers Earth tones when it comes to building ambience.  He finds them richer and more elegant than primary colors.

• Extras are the costs a contractor adds to his original bid every time you request any change in the plan you initially agreed on.

• Most corporations used a G-4 jet in the late 1980’s.

• Trump’s style of deal-making is “Aim very high, and keep pushing to get what you’re after.”

• Deal-making is not something one is born with.  It’s about instincts and the intelligence around it.

• “You can take the smartest kid at Wharton, the one who gets straight A's and has a 170 IQ, and if he doesn't have the instincts, he'll never be a successful entrepreneur.”

• “Moreover, most people who do have the instincts will never recognize that they do, because they don't have the courage or the good fortune to discover their potential. Somewhere out there are a few men with more innate talent at golf than Jack Nicklaus, or women with greater ability at tennis than Chris Evert or Martina Navratilova, but they will never lift a club or swing a racket and therefore will never find out how great they could have been. Instead, they'll be content to sit and watch stars perform on television.”

• “Most people who try to get rich quick end up going broke instead.”

• Trump likes to think big.

• “To me it’s very simple: If you’re going to be thinking anyway, you might as well think big.”

• Always gravitate towards better success.

• “When I was working in Queens, I always wanted Forest Hills.  As I grew older and perhaps wiser, I realized Forest Hills was great, but Forest Hills isn’t Fifth Avenue.”

• Trump is attracted to the challenges of creating and constructing buildings and developments in big city areas.

• One of the keys to thinking big is total focus.

• Many highly successful entrepreneurs use total focus as a sort of “controlled neurosis”.

• Highly successful entrepreneurs tend to be obsessive, driven, single-minded, and almost manical - channeling it all into their work.

• Trump doesn’t consider taking risks as “gambling.”

• Gambling to him are simply slot machines.

• “It’s very good business being the House.”

• Trump believes in the power of negative thinking.

• He is very conservative in business.

• “If you go for the home run on every pitch, you’re going to strike out a lot.”

• “You can’t be too greedy.”

• Trump likes to keep a lot of the projects in the air.

• Once he makes a deal, he comes up with at least half a dozen approaches to making it work because anything can happen, even to the best-laid plans.

• His first Manhattan deal was getting an option to purchase the Penn Central railyards at West 34th Street.

• He doesn’t take critics too seriously, except when they stand in the way of his projects. 

• He believes critics write to impress each other.

• “The worst thing you can possibly do in a deal is seem desperate to make it.”

• The press is always hungry for a good story.  The more sensational the better.

• When a reporter asks me a tough question, I try to frame a positive answer.

• “The final key to the way I promote is bravado. I play to people's fantasies. People may not always think big themselves, but they can still get very excited by those who do. That's why a little hyperbole never hurts. People want to believe that something is the biggest and the greatest and the most spectacular.  I call it truthful hyperbole. It's an innocent form of exaggeration-and a very effective form of promotion.”

• “I’m very good to people who are good to me.  But when people treat me badly or unfairly or try to take advantage of me, my general attitude, all my life, has been to fight back very hard.”

• “My experience is that if you’re fighting for something you believe in—even if it means alienating some people along the way—things usually work out for the best in the end.”

• “One of the problems when you become successful is that jealousy and envy follow.”

• The most important influence on him growing up was his father Fred Trump.

• Fred’s dad passed away when he was 11 years old.

• “The most important thing in life is to love what you’re doing, because that’s the only way you’ll ever be really good at it.”

• Fred was a carpenter by trade who made a living building low-income properties due to the Great Depression.

• Fred build his first house for $5,000 and sold it for $7,500.

• His mother had to sign his checks because he was not yet of age.

• Donald’s brother died at age 43 from a heart attack induced by alcohol use.

• Trump was nearly expelled in 2nd grade for punching his music teacher in the eye.  An action he regrets.

• “Much like the way it is today, people either liked me a lot, or they didn’t like me at all.”

• Donald was sent to military school at age 13.

• Trump attended the New York Military Academy through his senior year.

• He was appointed a captain of the cadets his senior year.

• Theodore Thomas, a former Marine drill sergeant, played a huge impact in young Donald.

• Thomas always tended to be very tough on people, so Donald used his intelligence to work with him.  He made it clear he respected his authority without seeming intimidated by him.

• Trump graduated from the New York Military Academy in 1964.

• He flirted with the idea of attending film school at the University of Southern California.

• He first attended Fordham University in the Bronx.

• He later applied and was accepted into the Wharton School of Finance at the University of Pennsylvania.

• “Harvard Business School may produce a lot of CEO’s—guys who manage public companies—but the real entrepreneurs all seemed to go to Wharton.”

• A Wharton degree is considered very prestigious.

• Trump inherited business aspect from Fred, showmanship aspects from his mother Mary.

• Trump is part Swedish, part Scottish.

• It’s not how many hours you put in, it’s what you get done while you’re working.

• He has had his eye on Manhattan since he graduated Wharton.

• His net worth at graduation was $200,000.  For perspective, he did not have $200,000 in the bank, but he owned buildings and property worth $200,000.

• He was more excited moving into his first apartment than the one he lived in for years at Trump Tower.

• The reason is, he was a kid from Queens, who worked in Brooklyn, and now had his own apartment on the Upper East Side.

• After moving in, he decided to join Le Club.

• He doesn’t drink alcohol.

• Trump was hit with a lawsuit stating his companies discriminated against black people in his apartments.

• According to Trump, he wasn’t discriminating based on race.  He had some black tenants in his buildings.  He states that he did not want to run a welfare apartment building because tenants tended to skip on rent.

• He considered Roy Cohn to be one of his most loyal associates.

• Roy struggled with being gay in the 1970’s NYC scene.

• He would project at great lengths to hide it because he felt people would see him as a wimp.

• In 1973, the housing market in Manhattan cooled drastically.

• In the mid-1970’s, a lot of areas on the West Side were considered dangerous.

• He met a guy named Victor Pamieri, who sold properties for Penn Central in exchange for a portion of the sale.

• As he worked to make a name for himself, he began to refer to his company as the “Trump Organization” because he felt the word “Organization” made it sound so much bigger.

• In the 1970’s, New York City has a fiscal crisis.

• Trump’s offer to build a convention center (today the Javits Center) was rejected.  However, since he helped to broker the deal, he was given a broker’s commission.

• The city felt that since Trump helped to broker the deal, allowing him to build it as well would be a conflict of interest.

• By the time it opened, it was 4 years behind schedule, and $250 million in overrun costs.

• Trump bought the option for the Commodore hotel in NYC from Victor Palmieri.

• When Trump’s father heard about his plans, he couldn’t believe he was serious.  

• “Buying the Commodore at a time when even the actual we Building is in receivership is like fighting for a seat on the Titanic.” - Fred Trump

• Trump work with the Hyatt hotels to operate the Commodore post-renovation.  They did not have a flagship hotel in NYC, and the deal was interesting for them.

• Trump made and had broken several deals before he learned that the Pritker family held controlling interest in Hyatt.

• “If you’re going to make a deal of any significance, you have to go to the top.”

• Hyatt is based out of Chicago.

• Trump doesn’t much trust other people in business. 

• For renovating the Hyatt from the Commodore, NYC gave Trump property tax abatement for 40 years (1975 - 2015).  In return, Trump gave NYC a yearly fee, and a share of any profit the hotel made.

• Critics were upset at the length of the abatement.  Other groups debated jumping in.

• Palmieri announced that the Commodore would close a day before the city made its decision.  

• On May 19th, the Board of Estimate voted unanimously 8-0 to approve Trump’s tax abatement.

• The Grand Hyatt opened in September 1980.

• When he bought the Bonwit Building, he got a $25 million loan from Chase Manhattan Bank.

• Trump expresses an appreciation for the way Walter Hoving ran Tiffany’s.

• This is part of why he began employing security outside of Trump Tower.  To keep the streets clean.

• One of the reasons Trump left his father’s business and Brooklyn was rent control.

• “Skyscrapers are machines for making money.” - Arthur Drexler.

• Ada Louise Huxtable was the chief architecture critic for the New York Times.

• Trump invited her to see his plans for the Bonwit space.

• Her review of Trump Tower was titled “A New York Blockbuster of Superior Design”.

• Trump states that this headline did more for his zoning than his own words or actions ever did.

• In October 1979, zoning was approved for Trump Tower.

• HRH Construction was the general contractor for Trump Tower.

• During construction, the Metropolitan Museum of Art asked him to save the friezes on the original structure.  Trump told them that if they could be saved, he would donate them.

• During construction, his builders told them that they were heavier than expected and would required several weeks to save.

• Because of this, the sculptures were destroyed, and Trump laments that this was a mistake on his part.  He regrets the error saying he was too young and in too much of a hurry to take it into consideration.

• Olympic Tower was built by Aristotle Onassis.

• Trump Tower has a policy not to comment about sales.

• Trump was able to raise apartment prices 12 times since Trump Tower went up.

• His first major tenants were Arab, then French, then South American.  Each time apartments opened up, different groups of people would apply.

• He has a respect for the Japanese economy.

• He hates doing business with the Japanese because they usually meet in groups of 6, 8, or 12, and it’s more difficult to convince all of them on a deal.

• There are 263 apartments in Trump Tower.

• He kept a few spots off the market much the way hotel operators do for emergency situations.

• There are 3 penthouse triplexes on the top floor with about 12,000 sq feet of space.

• Trump moved into one in 1983.

• After visiting Adnan Khashoggi at his apartment in Olympic Tower, Trump decided to combine 2 of the triplexes to form a larger apartment.

• He had an 80-ft long living room.

• In 1986, Trump bought out Equitable’s share of ownership in Trump Tower.

• It was over a maintenance disagreement.  The new person in charge of Equitable’s New York real estate operation was upset that the brass in the atrium was polished twice a month at a cost of $1 million.  Trump expected high standards and the person wanted to cut costs.

• In 1975, he heard a report that 2 of the Hilton Hotel & Casinos in Las Vegas had workers going on strike.  As a result, Hilton stock dropped tremendously.

• The reason the company’s stock fell so greatly, is because despite having 150 hotels worldwide, the 2 in Vegas accounted for 40% of the company’s net profits.

• To compare, the hotel in New York City accounted for less than 1%.

• He considers the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) to be the biggest casino in the world.

• Getting a casino license in New Jersey is a nightmare.  This is why most people go for it in Nevada.

• Trump chose his brother Robert to manage the day-to-day operations in Atlantic City.

• He provided New Jersey regulators with detailed building plans and architectural drawings well in advance of construction to know what changes they wanted made before building began.

• Michael Rose, the chairman of Holiday Inn, met with Trump to form a partnership over his site in Atlantic City.

• Rose scheduled his annual board of directors meeting in Atlantic City to convince them of it.

• Trump was nervous because construction had not yet fully started, so he ordered his construction supervisor and told him to round up every bulldozer and dump truck he could find and put them to work doing any task until told otherwise.

• This helped to convince the Board of Directors that this was the right decision, and the partnership was approved.

• The budget for the Atlantic City hotel and casino was $220 million.  They came in slight under budget at $218 million.

• Trump had many disagreements with Holiday Inn, which led to him buying out their share in February 1986.

• The hotel and casino was renamed Trump Plaza Hotel and Casino.

• To build a first-class operation, hire the best people from your competitors.  Pay them more than they were earning, and give the bonuses and incentives based on performance.

• Trump had investments in Holiday Inn nearing 5%.  He sold off his stock from them, which paid back the total he had paid for the buyout of his hotel and casino.

• Hilton hotels was started by Conrad Hilton in 1921.

• His son Barron took over the company in 1966.

• While he had some unsuccessful moments, such as the company’s credit card business Carte Blanche, he left his mark by getting them into casino gambling.

• Barron believed he would easily get licensed in New Jersey since he was already established in Nevada.

• Hilton was turned down by the New Jersey Gaming Commission.

• Ben Lambert was on the Hilton board of directors, and they were split on how to handle the situation.

• Lambert invited Trump to a party to see if he could convince Barron to sell him the property.

• Conrad Hilton was a firm believer that inherited wealth destroys moral character and motivation.

• When he died in 1979, he left Barron a small number of shares, and $10,000 worth of shares to each of his grandchildren.

• The rest of his wealth was to be given to his foundation that supported charitable works of Catholic nuns in California.

• Barron attempted to fight this in court.

• Federal law prohibits charitable organizations from owning more than 20% of stock in a major company.

• The amount Conrad had left the Foundation was 27%.

• Steve Wynn attempted to buying control f interest in Hilton.

• This helped Trump by causing Barron to focus less on getting licensed in New Jersey, and more on fending off a corporate buyout of his company.

• Trump made a deal with Hilton to buy their property in Atlantic City.

• He named the project Trump Castle and put his then-wife Ivana in charge of running it.

• The contract for the purchase of the property allowed the Trump Organization to hold back $5 million, pending completion of the building.

• After noticing several defects on Trump Castle, Trump realized the cost would far exceed the $5 million withheld to handle it.

• He called Barron to talk about the situation.  He agreed to meet with him in New York the following Monday.  Instead, Trump was served a lawsuit seeking immediate payment.

• When he called Barron to question it, he acted as if he didn’t know about it.  Same with Hilton’s executive VP Greg Dillion.

• Trump filed a countersuit and the legal battle was still pending when the book was written.

• Rent control serves to protect the rent price for lower income families.

• The down side to rent control is that as fuel, labor, and maintenance costs, and other factors grow with inflation, the rent stays the same, causing landlords to bleed money.

• Trump states that he is not against rent control but, citing examples of more prominent people taking advantage, there should be a means test for anyone living in a rent-controlled apartment.  People living below a certain income could remain and continue to pay the same amount.  People making more have a choice of paying a higher proportioned amount or moving elsewhere.

• “You don’t act on an impulse—even a charitable one—unless you’ve considered the downside.”

• Trump loves sports.

• He bought the New Jersey Generals of the USFL for $6 million in 1983.

• He considers the NFL to be a monopoly and is unfair to other leagues.

• At the time he bought the team, ABC was paying $1 million for exclusive rights for USFL games where they were paying $359 million a year for NFL games.

• At his first owners meeting in Houston, he learned that most of the owners were doing the league passively with no real ambition to take on the NFL.

• His best player was Heisman winner Herschel Walker.

• He claims that he nearly landed Don Shula for the head coaching job, but turned him down when he asked for a Trump Tower apartment to be included in his compensation.

• He signed Lawrence Taylor to a futures contract for after his contract with the Giants expired.  This caused the Giants to renegotiate his contract.

• Steve Young signed a multi-million dollar contract and played with the LA Express before moving to the NFL.

• Trump considers committees to be something insecure people create in order to put off hard decisions.

• Trump likes consultants even less than he like committees.

• “When it comes to making a smart decision, the most distinguished planning committee working with the highest-priced consultants doesn't hold a candle to a group of guys with a reasonable amount of common sense and their own money on the line.”

• Doug Flutie’s final play in college for Boston College was the legendary 50-yard bomb to beat Miami.

• He personally guaranteed Doug Flutie’s contract with the Generals.  If the league had failed, he could sell Flutie’s contract to an NFL team.

• He considered Flutie, Young, and Jim Kelly to be the brightest stars of the league.  All three went on to become stars in the NFL, with Young and Kelly appearing in multiple Super Bowls.

• Herschel Walker rushed for 2,411 yards in 1985.  The most for any player in a professional league.  That’s more than the NFL’s all-time record for yards in a season set by Eric Dickerson (2,105) in 1984.  The only outstanding difference is the USFL played 18 games in a season to the NFL’s 16, giving Herschel 2 more games to gain yardage.

• The USFL won their antitrust lawsuit against the NFL, but damages were awarded for only $1.  

• A week later, the league suspended the 1986 season indefinitely and folded shortly after.

• Trump approached New York City about the Wollman Skating Rink.

• After a public feud, NYC tasked Trump in May 1986, with rebuilding the rink for less than $3 million by December 15th of that year.  

• Trump went to Canada to find out how to build an ice rink.

• He learned from a company called Cimco the differences in ice rinks.

• Most companies use a traditional method brine system, where salt water is circulated through pipes.  It costs more, but is highly reliable and incredibly durable.

• The other option is to use Freon.  Freon uses less electricity, however it is delicate, temperamental, and difficult to maintain, especially in places with high turnover.

• The Rockefeller Center Skating Rink has used a brine system since 1936.

• The rink Trump inherited from the city’s incompetent rebuild was found to be on an 8-inch pitch.

• The Wollman Rink is built on top of the former one.

• No one in the city government bureaucracy is held accountable for failure.

• “You don’t reward failure by promoting those responsible for it.”

• “It irritates me that critics, who’ve neither designed nor built anything themselves, are given Carte Blanche to express their views in the pages of major publications, whereas the targets of their criticism are almost never offered space to respond.”

• “Providing jobs, in my view, is a far more constructive solution to unemployment than creating welfare programs.”

• Trump finishes by recapping all the projects he had worked on up to that point in 1987.  They include:

- Holiday Inns
- Annabel Hill
- United States Football League
- Wollman Rink
- Palm Beach Towers
- The Australian Casino
- The Beverly Hills Hotel
- The Parking Garages
- Las Vegas
- The Trump Car
- The Drexel Deal
- Trump’s Castle
- Gulf & Western
- Mar-A-Lago
- Moscow Hotel
- Trump Fund
- My Apartment
- Airplane
- What’s Next
—————
Overall, not a bad read.  I enjoyed learning more about Trump and his background.  I know a few of you simply don’t care for him, but objectively speaking, the book itself is an interesting read.  I recommend it if you want to learn more about Trump’s business in the 1970’s and 1980’s, you’re a fan of New York architecture, or want to learn more about the real estate business.

Recommended.

On to Book #35: “The Audacity of Hope” by Barack Obama.

(EDIT) - Book #35 will be released later on.  Book #36 will release next as Obama’s book.