Donald J Trump, with Merideth McIver: How to Get Rich: Big deals from the star of The Apprentice

I'm not sure how Donald Trump's hair can teach us how to get rich. Yet Mr Trump's book How to Get Rich contains a full four pages on the subject, revealing - gasp - that it's not a toupee and that he dyes it because he finds its natural grey colour unappealing. The book is full of nuggets like this: in short, everything one might expect from a man so brashly egotistical. And it's hard to blame Mr Trump for taking this approach (could you envision him expounding on particle physics? Exactly.) At the same time, it is difficult to recommend reading the book other than as a piece of entertainment. It contains around 50 quick-hit chapters of advice, a walk through a week in the life of Mr Trump and a short take on his reality TV show, The Apprentice. The advice isn't total rubbish, even if it's pretty standard stuff (chapter titles include "Stay Focused", "Don't Equivocate" and "Keep Your Door Open") and the section on public speaking urges us to "study Regis Philbin", one of the most endearingly obnoxious characters on American television. The week-in-the-life section gets a little tedious, and unless you're Trump-obsessed you probably don't need to read the entire thing. The section on The Apprentice is an afterthought.

How to Get Rich won't show you how to get rich, a subject Mr Trump himself has limited experience in, having been born into wealth. If you find The Donald's staccato voice and larger-than-life persona pleasing - or if you just get a good laugh out of things like this - the book isn't bad at all. In the end, it's a fun and very easy read, in spite of the fact that its title is a misnomer. Publisher Random House, 2004 Ratings Explained ★★★★★Excellent ★★★★Very good ★★★Good ★★Poor ★Dire * Asa Fitch