Together with his assistant, Evelyn Duffy, he interviews everyone he can, on tape if possible, and gathers documents. Mr Woodward brings decades of Washington gravitas to the job. In “Fire and Fury” Mr Wolff gets some details wrong and includes things that were too good to check still, he captures the absurd, terrifying early months of the administration. “I got many offers after leaving the White House, but I chose ‘Celebrity Big Brother’ because it has always been one of my favourite shows,” she writes in “Unhinged”. Ms Manigault Newman has more access but is no Mark Twain. Mr Comey is reliable but only has a few encounters with the president to relate. Two have been written by participants (James Comey and Omarosa Manigault Newman) and two by observers (Michael Wolff and, now, Mr Woodward). Given the appetite for stories about what goes on in the room where it happens, there will be more. There have already been four book-length attempts to solve this puzzle. Like Artotrogus, his underlings praise him lavishly in public, then tell journalists that he is a “moron” (attributed to Rex Tillerson, his former secretary of state), an “idiot” (attributed to John Kelly, his chief of staff) and has the understanding of “a 5th or 6th grader” (attributed to James Mattis, the defence secretary). In the words of his own lawyer, John Dowd-as cited by Bob Woodward in “Fear”-the president is “a fucking liar”.

Authors of books about the Trump White House are confronted by the same problem, as are their readers.

Fury bob woodward