Every year my book group goes for a Christmas meal – this year we went for Lebanese food, which is my favourite cuisine and from an appropriately Bethlehem-adjacent country. Every year we also do a Secret Santa book swap – everybody puts a wrapped-up book into a bag, and everybody takes one out. I forget all the books I’ve got through this method previously, but I do remember that it’s how I discovered David Sedaris.
This year, incidentally, I got Jeanette Winterson’s retelling of A Winter’s Tale – called The Gap of Time. I’ve never read her, and have meant to for a while – this seems like a fun place to start.
Each parcel (and here I’m getting to my point) includes a bookish question to get the table chatting – whether that be favourite holiday-themed read, best book title, or whatever. And the one I wrote on my Secret Santa parcel was: which novel would you get Donald Trump to read? (I added an asterisk that, in this hypothetical scenario, we can assume that he can read.)
I’m listening to Michelle Obama’s autobiography at the moment, and the more I hear about the Obamas’ ascent to the White House, the more dispirited I feel about the man currently in charge of the free world. To go from someone intelligent, thoughtful, compassionate, wise, and kind to this deceitful, racist, sexist, childish, sociopathic monster – well, I’m not saying anything new here. (I do wonder if even Trump’s most ardent fans would call him ‘kind’?)
We all know that readers are more empathetic people, and that novels can make a big difference. What could Trump read that would help make him a better person?
We came up with a couple – To Kill A Mockingbird and A Christmas Carol, both of which are probably for self-explanatory reasons.
What about you – what would you have Donald Trump read?
Anything by George Orwell or Sinclair Lewis’s “It Couldn’t Happen Here”….
Or any number of feminist books to get across to him how vile his attitudes towards women are.
Excellent question, although I fear it is too late for him. He probably only reads articles about him or his autobiography. We had the same issue with Ceausescu – doubtful if he could read properly, and certainly nothing beyond his own opus. The problem is that if Trump does read something like The Handmaid’s Tale or dystopian fiction, it might give him even worse ideas…
Boy, you got him right! I wouldn’t give that fool the time of day let alone something wonderful like a book. Oh, how I wish I lived in Canada!
He is an illiterate horrific excuse for a human let alone president ,I wouldn’t waste a second suggesting a book for him,#notmypresident
I saw him on tv being questioned in court. The judge asked him to read paragraph 3 of a document. He couldn’t find it and seemed stressed. His lawyer pointed it out to him. Once he found it he struggled then said to the judge he couldn’t read it as he’d forgotten his glasses. I have never seen him wear glasses anywhere. I don’t think he can read above a fifth grade level. I almost felt sorry for him but that didnt last long. I can’t wait for this era to be over with.
Maybe he failed to recite/read the Apostles’ Creed at President Bush’s funeral because he cannot read – or at least, cannot read well enough to do so. If this is so, does he actually read the documents he signs and, if he can’t… who is actually running the show?
Maybe we should recommend a talking book?
Maybe he should read about his pal Putin in The Ukrainian and Russian Notebooks by Igort.
My first thought was ‘A Christmas Carol ’ too where there is such a profound change of heart in Scrooge. I’m going to suggest another couple of incredibly different books that follow on with this theme:
How the Grinch Stole Christmas
The Biblical books of Luke and Acts (many people profoundly change – particularly Saul!)
Let’s get serious, unless someone is reading Dickens to Trump, and explaining any big words, and fighting to keep his attention, he’s not going to get through “A Christmas Carol.” This is Trump we’re talking about, so we have to start him off with a picture book. Say, “It Takes A Village” by Hillary Rodham Clinton.
I love your book group celebration. And what a fascinating question! To Kill A Mockingbird is a great suggestion. In that same vein, I was thinking All The Light We Cannot See, especially since you wouldn’t expect Werner (the German boy) to be a hero but he is. And since Trump struggles to acknowledge (or even recognize) the dignity of “the other”, it would (with God’s mercy) get him thinking. (Taking into consideration that this is theoretical, and Trump really does need a change of heart, mind, and soul.)
I was also thinking Howards End by E.M. Forster with its themes of the tension between the inner and outer worlds and the importance of home and place. The former because Trump’s inner world is likely frightening and certainly needs cultivation and the latter because he’s the leader of a place that is home for many kinds of people, and he would do well to consider why that matters.
I assume I can’t say his own obituary? 😉
Well, seeing as he seems determined to ignore the environmental crisis our planet is facing I would choose him When the Floods Came by Claire Morrall. No doubt he would call it fake though as it’s fiction. Terrifyingly probable fiction though.
Alarmingly, I saw in a paper* this morning that he believes the riots over environmental taxes currently taking place in France vindicate his stance on climate change. Whatever he reads he will have the ability to interpret it how he chooses – as we all do to some extent. Nevertheless, going by the title alone, I think I have found the perfect book for him: Think Before You Speak by Roy Lewicki. Unfortunately, I think he would be probably prefer D A Bale’s book of the same name. Why? Because it is the second volume in what is described as “The Bartender Babe Chronicles”. I bet you never thought you would read a reference to that series in the erudite and gentle world of Stuck in a Book!
* Someone else’s paper, glance on the train. I have mastered the art of walking past the station news stall, and the newspaper shelves in the supermarket, without noting the front page ravings of our out of control press. They may speak for many; they do not speak for me.
O pout!
Any day Trump-free day is a good day (and we do get them sometimes here in Australia) but here he is popping up “in the erudite and gentle world of Stuck in a Book”! (Thank you David, for putting it so well).
I am surprised all the authors recommended so far are white, and mostly male. It’s probably true that he’d refuse to read anything else, but as we’re already in la-la land thinking he’d read at all, my recommendations are audio versions of:
The Ways of White Folks by Langston Hughes. Written in the 1930s, but still remarkably current, as the ways of white folks haven’t changed much in the last hundred years.
Between the World and Me by Ta-Nahesi Coates
Esperanza Rising by Pam Muñoz Ryan. A children’s book, but a good one, about a migrant family from Mexico in the 1930s.
Unpresidented: A Biography of Donald Trump by Martha Brockenbrough. For a glimpse of how others see him. Thorough and well documented.
I would suggest the Constitution, but recognizing his short attention span, I choose Matthew 22:35-40:
Then one of them, which was a lawyer, asked him a question, tempting him, and saying, Master, which is the great commandment in the law? Jesus said unto him, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind. This is the first and great commandment. And the second is like unto it, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself. On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.
Teach Me About the United States Constitution, a children’s book by Toretha Wright. Melania could read it to him if necessary.
That’s the question…
The first book that came into my mind was “The Origins of Totalitarianism”, but perhaps it is better not to give him any ideas… Maybe “Human Rights: a Very Short Introduction” would be a better choice.
;)
How about the audiobook of Michelle Obama.
Ministries of Mercy – Timothy Keller
Pride and Prejudice. Great post!
I think we should be careful with this… maybe start with something easy like… The Cat in the Hat!
What a fantastic idea!! And I literally snorted at “assumed he can read” 😂 As to the question, I’m really not sure – I’m worried that his worldview is so ingrained that anything he reads will be subject to his confirmation bias, and only end up reinforcing his attitudes further. E.g. He’d probably call the Joads “losers” if he read The Grapes Of Wrath, for not buying their own tractor or something. Honestly, I’d be happy if he just read books – any books! – written by people who don’t look like him (women, POC, LGBTIQ+, etc). That’d be a step in the right direction, at least.