The words “spring break” tend to conjure images of wild college trips, wet t-shirt contests, and phosphorescent drinks in sweating plastic cups. For parents of younger children, however, the week off is more often an opportunity to sit down, keep half an eye on the kids to make sure they don’t accidentally destroy themselves, and maybe read an Oprah’s Book Club selection or two.
Judging by Ivanka Trump’s Instagram photo dump on Tuesday, the latter was the vibe of her recent family vacation with husband Jared Kushner and kids Arabella, 14, Joseph, 11, and Theodore, 9, to Costa Rica. Of the 18 photos and videos included in her carousel, just one slide does not feature the beach and/or a horse: a picture of her reading list.
And, boy, is it interesting to read into her picks.
In the post’s caption, in which she gushes about how “grateful” she is for the trip (the word “doesn’t begin to cover it,” she insists), Trump describes “logging off and tuning in. Grounding in nature’s rhythm. Feeling the sacred in the silence, in the laughter of my children, in the breath of the trees.”
Ivanka also, in her own words, “read until the sun dipped low.” Three favorites are arrayed on a bedspread: Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow by Gabrielle Zevin, The Women by Kristin Hannah, and The Tell by Amy Griffin. The books have a few things in common: They’re all written by female authors, and feature main characters that could fall under the “strong female lead” umbrella. They are all distinguished members of the New York Times bestseller club. The two fictional entries, Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow and The Women, both had their film rights snapped up in big-deal movie contracts before the books even hit shelves.
Although none of the three authors have openly criticized Ivanka’s dear old dad, Donald Trump, they carry thematic messages that he might not love so much. And the books she read have been praised by other authors and public figures who have spoken publicly against her father.
Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow, which was published in 2022, follows two friends and eventual creative collaborators through decades, from childhood to middle age, co-creating a hit video game along the way and facing various slings and arrows, together and apart. A major theme of the novel is the push-pull between money and art, a salient topic in a time when artists face personal and financial peril under an unsmiling government.
The book was a critical and commercial success, and made the New York Times’ list of the 100 most notable books of the 21st century. Among its fans are author John Green, who has been vocal about his take of Trump as a national disaster. Green called the novel “one of the best books I’ve ever read.” Bill Gates, who donated some $50 million to organizations supporting Kamala Harris before Election Day and has since publicly sounded the alarm on the current administration’s cuts to public health, loved it too. He said that the book “resonated with me for personal reasons,” but also that the story is “a terrific metaphor for human connection.” DNC speaker Oprah Winfrey included the book in her list of the best books of 2022.
More recently, Zevin was at the center of a controversy when a Chicago bookstore removed the novel from consideration for the store’s book club, calling Zevin “a Zionist” in an email and explaining that they didn’t want to give her “monetary support.” She has never publicly spoken about her views on Israel, and was also included on a separate list of reportedly Zionist authors for readers to consider boycotting. The bookstore publicly apologized for removing her book from the poll without discussion, and to their Jewish customers, but not to Zevin herself.
Ivanka Trump is also Jewish, having converted before marrying Kushner.
Hannah’s The Women, a historical fiction account of a young woman working as a military nurse during the Vietnam War, was also an instant No. 1 NYT bestseller. It explores themes of mental health and trauma—not things Trump is a huge believer in, beside his many gaffes around military veterans. (Remember when he said that recipients of the Congressional Medal of Honor are in “bad shape” or “dead”? Or his assertion that those who seek help for mental health or suffer from PTSD aren’t “strong”? How about his former chief of staff saying Trump referred to fallen vets as “suckers” and “losers”? He disputed that last one, but there are more where that came from.) Gates called Hannah’s book a “beautifully written tribute to a group of veterans who deserve more appreciation for the incredible sacrifices they made.” Nicholas Kristof, the adamantly anti-Trump Pulitzer Prize-winning New York Times journalist, dubbed the book “historical fiction at its very best.”
And then there’s recent release The Tell, a memoir from Griffin. It’s also a bestseller and got the full Oprah’s Book Club treatment, sticker on the cover and all. In the book, Griffin details how she uncovered childhood and sexual trauma with the help of psychedelic drugs. Chanel Miller, author of Know My Name, her own account of the trauma of being sexually assaulted by Brock Turner, praised the book as “transformative and illuminating.” Miller invoked Trump, accused several times over of sexual assault, which he denied, in her own memoir, writing, “We live in a time where it has become difficult to distinguish between the President’s words and that of a 19-year-old assailant. Society gives women the near impossible task of separating harmlessness from danger, the foresight of knowing what some men are capable of.”
So, Ivanka, tell us, your imaginary book club: What did you take from these books that your dad would almost certainly abhor?
More Great Stories From Vanity Fair
-
How Sebastian Stan Became Hollywood’s Most Daring Shape-Shifter
-
Inside Elon Musk’s Grievance-Fueled MAGA-morphosis
-
Sinners’ End Credits Explained
-
The Original Girl of the Year
-
Elon Musk’s Breeding Spree Is So Much Wilder Than You Thought
-
Who Is Pete Hegseth’s Wife, Jennifer Rauchet?
-
Roman Reigns’s Quest to Be WWE’s Next Great Crossover Star
-
Every Quentin Tarantino Movie, Ranked
-
Tom Hanks Is Supportive of His Daughter’s Revealing Memoir About Her Troubled Childhood
-
Meet Elon Musk’s 14 Children and Their Mothers (Whom We Know of)
-
From the Archive: Pope Versus Pope: Benedict XVI, Francis, and Their Holy War
The post Ivanka Trump’s Vacation Beach Reads Include Titles Beloved By Anti-Trumpers, Including Oprah appeared first on Vanity Fair.
