Trump’s America Book Club: the dystopian novels, satire and right-wing tracts everyone’s reading to understand US leader

The US president has unwittingly launched a book club for America as dystopian fiction gains new readers and his blustering style and erratic early actions feed appetite for satire and explainers

Reading Time:3 minutes

Published: 1:02pm, 16 Feb 2017Updated: 1:01pm, 16 Feb 2017

Donald Trump is making America read again. It started during the campaign, when J.D. Vance’s Hillbilly Elegy became the go-to text explaining Trump’s appeal among low-income white voters. It continued in January, when a public row between Trump and Democratic lawmaker John Lewis boosted sales of Lewis’ trilogy March and memoir Walking With the Wind.

And then came the dystopian-fiction craze, when Trump adviser Kellyanne Conway immortalised herself in America’s political lexicon by describing White House falsehoods as “alternative facts” – and George Orwell’s 1984 shot to the top of Amazon’s sales ranking.

A president who rarely reads books has unwittingly launched a book club for America. Every feud, every outrage, every did-he-really-just-do-that episode propels a new literary discussion. In the months since the election, critics have been suggesting books explaining the convulsions of the Trump era.

As with any book club, national or personal, the key question is what book comes next – a more urgent matter now that those choices appear to reflect the political fears, grievances and aspirations of America’s citizen-readers.