NPR's Books We Love 2021

“Two new books about the final year of Donald J. Trump’s presidency are entering the cultural bloodstream. The first, Landslide, by the gadfly journalist Michael Wolff, is the one to leap upon. . . . Landslide is a smart, vivid and intrepid book. He has great instincts. I read it in two or three sittings. It’s the book that this era and this subject probably deserve.”
—Dwight Garner, The New York Times

“The strength of Landslide comes less from these stories and more from a coherent argument that Wolff, in partnership with his sources, makes about how we should understand the period between Nov. 3 and Jan. 20. Most quickly produced books about political events don’t do that.”
—Nicholas Lemann, The New York Times

“First there was Fire and Fury, then there was Siege, now there is Landslide. The third is the best of the three, and that is saying plenty.”
—The Guardian

“[Wolff's] narrative tends to be more entertaining, sailing swiftly ahead where others tend to grind. . . . All good stories are rich in colorful characters, whether seen as good guys or bad, and Wolff gives us a gallery that does not disappoint.”
—Ron Elving, NPR

“I inhaled Landslide, gobbled it up.”
—Slate

“The world was waiting for a new Hunter Thompson. And in Michael Wolff it has found him. . . . He provides a seamless, cinematic narrative of unfolding events in the White House, as if he was quietly sitting in the corner, unnoticed, taking notes, with some preternatural insight into the innermost thoughts of all the protagonists. Cruel, unforgiving, muckraking, scandalous. I couldn’t stop reading it.”
—The Telegraph

“Wolff’s previous books on this president — Fire and Fury and Siege — titillated us with inside tales from a dysfunctional White House; terrified us a bit with gut-wrenching episodes of Diet Pepsi-fuelled craziness. They were warm-up acts. Low energy in comparison. Now we get the real deal. Landslide cuts deeper than any previous book about this president, indeed about any president.”
—The Times of London

“Wow. Just wow. . . . If Donald Trump seems like a distant, bad dream, Michael Wolff’s pacily readable account of his last months as president warns that we shouldn’t write him off yet. It’s a vivid portrait of a regime governed by chaos and venal favouritism, where trusted staffers could become bitter enemies in a moment, and you could gain the President’s ear if he saw and liked you on TV.”
—Evening Standard