» 13 Books to Read in Preparation for the Trump Presidency.The Booktopian

Whether you loathe him or hate him, Donald Trump certainly has the world talking.

Living under a Trump presidency, to fit in you may need to discard such traits as empathy, compassion and morality; to learn selfishness, to disenfranchise everyone ‘other’ to Trump, and prepare for the apocalypse.

Now that he is president-elect of the United States, here is Booktopia’s reading guide to help you reach a new level of debasement under the Trump Presidency.

13 Books to Read in Preparation for the Trump Presidency

Pity the Billionaire
by Thomas Frank

Economic meltdown usually brings calls for change – or it’s supposed to. But when Thomas Frank set out to find these, all he heard were loud demands that the losers be hit harder and that the winners get more. We were told for decades that the market knows best, then had a once-in-a-lifetime crash. And now we see a popular uprising supporting free-market principles.

As Frank explains, until 2009 the man on the dole did not weep for the man lounging on his yacht. Pity the Billionaire takes us on a wild road-trip through the strange landscape of the American Right, the Tea Party and Glenn Beck, makes sense of a topsy-turvy world and shows how instead of complying with the new speed limit, conservative America has stamped hard on the accelerator…

Learn more about Pity the Billionaire.

Selfish: Revised and Expanded Edition
by Kim Kardashian

Kim Kardashian is the biggest celebrity in the world right now. Her Paper magazine cover, #breaktheinternet, nearly did. The cover, showing a nearly naked Kim, was tweeted about, blogged, reblogged, posted about and reported on so much that Google Trends shows that internet coverage of Kim Kardashian hit an all time high when the magazine cover was released.

A natural leader of the selfie movement, in Selfish, Kim Kardashian shares her eye in print. The book is a highly personal glimpse into Kim’s daily life, with photos that give descriptive behind-the-scenes captions that will appeal to her devoted fan base.

Learn more about Selfish

Trump: The Art of the Deal
by Donald J Trump with Tony Schwartz

TRUMP ON TRUMP: “I like thinking big. I always have. To me it’s very simple: if you’re going to be thinking anyway, you might as well think big.”

And here’s how he does it: The Art of the Deal.

Beginning with a week in Trump’s high-stakes life, Trump: The Art of the Deal gives us Trump in action. We see just how he operates day to day-how he runs his business and how he runs his life-as he chats with friends and family, clashes with enemies, efficiently buys up Atlantic City’s top casinos, changes the face of the New York City skyline…and plans the tallest building in the world…

Learn more about Trump: The Art of the Deal.

Tempting the Billionaire
by Jessica Lemmon

Crickitt Day needs a job… any job. After her husband walks out on her, she’s determined to re-build her life and establish a new career. When swoon-worthy billionaire Shane August hires her as his assistant, she jumps at the chance to prove herself. Despite her growing attraction to her boss, she vows to keep things strictly professional. No flirting. No kissing. Definitely no falling in love.

Shane August is all business, all the time. He’s a self-made man who’s poured his heart and soul into his company, and he’d never allow himself to get involved with an employee. Then he hires sweet, sexy Crickitt – and he can’t keep his mind or his hands off her. But no matter how much he wants Crickitt, Shane fears that painful secrets from his past will always come between them…

Learn more about Tempting the Billionaire.

The Hunger Games
by Suzanne Collins

In the ruins of a place once known as North America lies the nation of Panem, a shining Capitol surrounded by twelve outlying districts. The Capitol is harsh and cruel and keeps the districts in line by forcing each of them to send one boy and one girl between the ages of twelve and eighteen to participate in the annual Hunger Games, a fight to the death on live TV.

Sixteenyear- old Katniss Everdeen, who lives alone with her mother and younger sister, regards it as a death sentence when she is forced to represent her district in the Games…

Learn more about The Hunger Games.

Trump: Think Like a Billionaire
by Donald J. Trump

It’s not good enough to want it. You’ve got to know how to get it.

Real estate titan, bestselling author, and TV star Donald J. Trump is the man to teach you the billionaire mind-set-how to think about money, career skills, and life. Here is crucial advice on investing in real estate from the expert, everything from dealing with brokers to renovating to assessing the value of property, buying and selling, and securing a mortgage.

Trump will show you how to cut costs, decide how much risk to assume in your investments, and divide up your portfolio. He’ll also teach you how to impress anyone, how to correct or criticize someone effectively, and how to know if your friends are loyal-everything you need to know to get ahead…

Learn more about Trump: Think Like a Billionaire.

Human, All Too Human
by Friedrich Nietzsche

Written after Nietzsche had ended his friendship with Richard Wagner and had been forced to leave academic life through ill health, Human, All Too Human (1878) can be read as a monument to his personal crisis. It also marks the point when he matured as a philosopher, rejecting the German romanticism espoused by Wagner and Schopenhauer and instead returning to sources in the French Enlightenment.

Here he sets out his unsettling views in a series of 638 stunning aphorisms – assessing subjects ranging from art to arrogance, boredom to passion, science to vanity and women to youth. This work also contains the seeds of concepts crucial to Nietzsche’s later philosophy, such as the will to power and the need to transcend conventional Christian morality. The result is one of the cornerstones of his life’s work…

Learn more about Human, All Too Human.

The Bad Beginning
by Lemony Snicket

Violet, Klaus, and Sunny Baudelaire are intelligent children. They are charming, and resourceful, and have pleasant facial features. Unfortunately, they are exceptionally unlucky.

In the first two books alone, the three youngsters encounter a greedy and repulsive villain, itchy clothing, a disastrous fire, a plot to steal their fortune, a lumpy bed, a deadly serpent, a large brass reading lamp, a long knife, and a terrible odour…

Learn more about The Bad Beginning.

The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire
by Edward Gibbon

Edward Gibbon’s Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire compresses 13 turbulent centuries into an epic narrative shot through with insight, irony and incisive character analysis.

Famously sceptical about Christianity, unexpectedly sympathetic to the barbarian invaders and the Byzantine Empire, constantly aware of how political leaders often achieve the exact opposite of what they intend, Gibbon was alert to both the broad pattern of events and the significant revealing detail. Gripping, powerfully intelligent and wonderfully entertaining, it is the greatest work of history in the English language, and ranks as one of the literary masterpieces of its age…

Learn more about The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire.

The Selfish Gene
by Richard Dawkins

Richard Dawkins’ brilliant reformulation of the theory of natural selection has the rare distinction of having provoked as much excitement and interest outside the scientific community as within it. His theories have helped change the whole nature of the study of social biology, and have forced thousands of readers to rethink their beliefs about life.

In his internationally bestselling, now classic volume, The Selfish Gene, Dawkins explains how the selfish gene can also be a subtle gene. The world of the selfish gene revolves around savage competition, ruthless exploitation, and deceit, and yet, Dawkins argues, acts of apparent altruism do exist in nature. Bees, for example, will commit suicide…

Learn more about The Selfish Gene.

A Practical Guide to Racism
by C. H Dalton

Meet ‘C. H. Dalton,’ a professor of racialist studies and an expert on inferior people of all ethnicities, genders, religions, and sexual preferences. Presenting evidence that everyone should be hated, A Practical Guide to Racism contains sparkling bits of wisdom on such subjects as:

The good life enjoyed by blacks, who shuffle through life unhindered by the white man’s burdens, to become accomplished athletes, rhyme smiths, and dominoes champions.
The sad story of the industrious, intelligent Jews, whose entire reputation is sullied by their taste for the blood of Christian babies…

Learn more about A Practical Guide to Racism.

The Running Man
by Stephen King

It’s not just a game when you’re running for your life.

Every night they tuned in to the nation’s favourite prime-time TV game show.

They all watched, from the sprawling slums to the security-obsessed enclaves of the rich. They all watched the ultimate live death game as the contestants tried to bet not the clock, but annihilation at the hands of the Hunters. Survive thirty days and win the billion dollar jackpot – that was the promise. But the odds were brutal and the game rigged. Best score so far was eight days.

And now there was a new contestant, the latest running man, staking his life while a nation watched…

Learn more about The Running Man.

No to Feminism
by Rebecca Shaw

When the #womenagainstfeminism movement lurched onto the internet, the sudden surge in women declaring that they ‘don’t need feminism because…’ was a low blow to all those fighting for the rights of women around the world.

But amusingly, three years on it appears that the movement’s greatest legacy has been Woman Against Feminism, a parody Twitter account that shows up the bizarre and illogical arguments of so many who blindly attack feminists.

Learn more about No to Feminism.