THE SUNDAY TIMES NUMBER ONE BESTSELLER THE OBSERVER BOOK OF THE YEAR
THE INSIDE STORY ON PRESIDENT TRUMP, AS ONLY BOB WOODWARD CAN TELL IT.
'I think you've always been fair.' - President Donald J. Trump, in a call to Bob Woodward, August 14, 2018
'The sheer weight of anecdotes depicts a man with no empathy and a pathological capacity for lying.' - The Financial Times
'Fuelling his narrative is an astonishing cast of rogues, ideologues, self-made millionaires and men in uniform who have spent the past two years in and out of Trump's administration.' - The Sunday Times
'Woodward's meticulous account of office intrigues, the president's men don't seem to be trembling with fright. What they mostly feel is contempt for Trump or pity for his ignorance and the "teenage logic" of his obsessively vented grievances.' - The Observer
'Horribly fascinating. Strongly recommended. If you can bear it.' Richard Dawkins
'To me the standout message from the book...is that the president is a bit clueless, a bit vain, a bit dangerous even; but his people are utterly at sea...' - Justin Webb, The Times
'He is the master and I'd trust him over politicians of either party any day of the week.' -Peter Baker, New York Times
'His work has been factually unassailable . . . In an age of 'alternative facts' and corrosive tweets about 'fake news,' Woodward is truth's gold standard.' - Jill Abramson, The Washington Post
'Fear depicts a White House awash in dysfunction, where the Lord of the Flies is the closest thing to an owner's manual.' The Guardian
'I wonder how many journalists have arrived in Washington over the years dreaming of becoming the next Bob Woodward . . . Though his books are often sensational, he is the opposite of sensationalist. He's diligent, rigorous, fastidious about the facts, and studiously ethical. There's something almost monastic about his method . . . He's Washington's chronicler in chief.' -Nick Bryant, BBC
'I've been on the receiving end of a Bob Woodward book. There were quotes in it I didn't like. But never once-never-did I think Woodward made it up. Anonymous sources have looser lips and may take liberties. But Woodward always plays is straight. Someone told it to him.' - Ari Fleisher, White House Press Secretary for George W. Bush
With authoritative reporting honed through eight presidencies from Nixon to Obama, author Bob Woodward reveals in unprecedented detail the harrowing life inside President Donald Trump's White House and precisely how he makes decisions on major foreign and domestic policies. Woodward draws from hundreds of hours of interviews with firsthand sources, meeting notes, personal diaries, files and documents. The focus is on the explosive debates and the decision-making in the Oval Office, the Situation Room, Air Force One and the White House residence.
Fear is the most intimate portrait of a sitting president ever published during the president's first years in office.
Like so many others, I was anxious to read this book. Having finished it, I find that it's an interesting perspective on a presidency where the general populace is already overrun by a flood of news regarding Trump: by him, about him, for him, against him.
I'm a bookseller, and I can say that this book - like Fire & Fury - has flown off the shelves. Stores can't keep it in stock. People were asking about it days before it released. But here's an interesting difference: with F&F, people were asking for "the Trump book"; with Fear, people are asking for "the Woodward book". It's a subtle difference - but it's there. And to me, especially having read the book, that difference speaks volumes. It's one thing to hear about or read about the general chaos within the Trump White House. Much of that is attributed to "anonymous sources". It's something altogether different to have a journalist of Woodward's standing say the same thing, BUT HAVE QUOTES AND NAMES to back it up. For obvious reasons, this lends a gravitas to the accounts that many others simply do not have. Yes, the book covers so many things we already know about, though there are some jaw-dropping new bits. It covers in so much more detail than most of what we've already read, and again - in quotes. It's insane to think that staffers are literally hiding paperwork from Trump because he will forget about it. It's pathetic and embarrassing as an American to have the White House staff referred to as, "Because when you put a snake and a rat and a falcon and a rabbit and a shark and a seal in a zoo without walls, things start getting nasty and bloody. That's what happens.". It's horrifying to learn that most of his staff tried to teach him - using graphs, charts, papers, etc. - that the tariffs would be bad...and he couldn't retain any of the information they gave him. Multiple times. The book as a whole, putting the picture together, is a terrifying picture of the person at the head of our country right now. But what makes it so terrifying is not necessarily the information that is not so much news - but having it all in one place, by an esteemed journalist, with quotes and documentation. Should people read this book? Yes. Because we should all know where we, as a country, stand right now. We are truly at the edge of an abyss, and it won't take much for the edge to crumble away beneath our feet.
