Fire and Fury: Inside the Trump White House (vuoden 2018 painos)

Ugh. This is the most boring book I've heard in a long time, and it's questionably sourced. Somehow, Michael Wolff managed to turn salacious/tumultuous/chaotic stories of the first year of the Trump White House into some banal/boring stupidity. There really is nothing here: there was some conflict among some of the staff, but that's basically it. Maybe there will be an interesting book about the Trump Presidency in the future, but this book isn't it.

The audiobook is painful to listen to as well; I'd read the text instead. Ploddingly slow at 1x, and at 2x sounds breathless. ( )

It was okay.

The book is so obviously rushed to print. There's small typos everywhere. Sentences run-on, ramble, or contain nested asides (of differing amounts of relevance to the main idea), and chapter/paragraph organization is sloppy. (It'd drive my advisers to conniption.) There's small errors like the wrong year or a mis-spelling in a name that make the text look like the author didn't know what he was talking about, but given the nature of the error I think its more likely an artifact of its rushed and largely un-edited state.

Reading this book over 5 months, I'm inclined to believe it. Do I think the quotes are exact? No, not for a second, especially when Wolff most assuredly was likely getting many of them second- or third-hand (compounding the issues with the lack of transparency of sources). But the 'gist' of the narrative seems to check out - I don't know if it matters if Trump was called a 'fucking moron' versus the synonymous 'fucking idiot' when the rest of the context is accurate.

This book is a study on preaching to the converted and telling folks what they want to hear - Wolff knows his audience. While I appreciate how hard it trolled Trump, I didn't really gain any new knowledge from this book, or new insight on Trump's presidency. I already knew he was unintelligent, uninformed, and largely uneducated in any area relevant to the position. I already knew he was easily flustered and frustrated, easily charmed and manipulated, and easily confused. I already knew he has trouble controlling his temper, controlling his staff, and controlling his own attention. I already knew he was unorganized in his thought, speech, and policies.

That's the problem with this book. And The Case for Impeachment. And A Higher Loyalty. No matter how fast you rush a book out, its too late. Trump's already moved on to other mistakes, scams, and scandals. The modern media struggle to keep up with every political faux pas, obvious lies, and general un-Presidential behavior that a book has no chance. ( )

Interesting, horrifying, hilarious and mostly gossip. ( )

Well written and credible, although little in it is new - most has appeared in other print media, albeit not in on place at the same time. It perfectly describes a dysfunctional White House and its oily nepotism. ( )

Jarvanka vs Bannon w/ Preibus in the middle
Review of the Henry Holt & Co. hardcover edition (January 2018)

Fire and Fury is currently (as of late November 2020) the 2nd most top voted book in the Trump Tell-alls List on Goodreads, which has the somewhat shocking current total of 225 books. The list is likely going to increase by 100+ with the Trump era ending and many retrospectives and memoirs yet to be written and published.

I found Fire and Fury to be a more realistic account of the initial months of the Trump presidency than Woodward's Fear, although it only covers about 6 to 9 months compared to the later book's 18 or so months. Wolff's style has less of the imagined quoted conversations than Woodward's which lent more of a fictional air to the latter book.

Wolff's focus is on the power play between the forces of strategist Steve Bannon and his Bannonites (representing the America First / Nationalist goals) vs advisors daughter Ivanka Trump & husband Jared Kushner and their allies (Jarvanka for short) and their more tempered approach (even Democrat conciliatory) but still fiercely family loyalty. The initial White House Chief of Staff Reince Preibus (representing the old school Republican Party) is caught in the middle. It is Shakespearean in its crazed gamesmanship towards the goals of power and influence. Surprisingly, Bannon actually comes across as the voice of reason several times, counselling against actions such as the firing of FBI Director James Comey.

I read Fire and Fury as part of my reading survey of various books in relation to the 2020 American Election. As a Canadian I’ve generally ignored American politics and elections in past years, but the drama of the situation in 2020 has heightened my interest. ( )