The Art of the Deal

Part memoir, part business manual, ghostwritten by Tony Schwartz from Trump’s own account of his first decade as a Manhattan developer. It runs through the Grand Hyatt, Trump Tower, the Wollman Rink and Atlantic City as worked examples, and interleaves them with a set of rules — think big, protect the downside, maximise the options, use your leverage, get the word out. Its structure is a week in Trump’s diary followed by the deals that made him, and it became one of the best-selling business books of the 1980s.

Why it’s on the list: A first-person account of how a large urban development actually gets assembled — zoning, tax abatements, air rights, lenders and press — written before its author was a political figure.

Where I saw it: @FilArons’s recommended-reading list, November 16, 2025.

Connections

• Donald Trump — the author.
• Negotiation — the book’s explicit subject and the source of its rules.
• Real Estate · New York City — the deals it works through are all Manhattan and Atlantic City development.