TRUMP CARD: Thirty-nine-year-old New York real estate...

TRUMP CARD: Thirty-nine-year-old New York real estate zillionaire Donald Trump has signed with Random House to write what the publisher promises will reveal “for the first time” the “inside stories of his extraordinary success as a dealmaker, developer and master builder.” Among Trump’s ventures are Trump Tower, a 68-story, $200-million skyscraper next to Tiffany’s on Fifth Avenue (where apartment prices range from $650,000 to $12 million); and his recently announced plans to build the world’s tallest building. When not camping out in his own 24,000-square-foot apartment on three floors atop Trump Tower, Trump himself holes up at Mar-a-Lago, the spectacular 128-room, 20-acre Palm Beach estate once owned by Marjorie Merriweather Post. Tentatively titled “The Art of the Deal” and promising to disclose not only his own life story but also his formula for success, Trump’s book will be written “with the editorial assistance” of New York Magazine contributing editor Tony Schwartz. Trump has announced he will donate his proceeds to an unspecified charity.

MORE TRUMPS: In a heated auction, Bantam Books has won publication rights to chef Michael Roberts’ first hardcover, “The Flavors of Michael Roberts,” due out in May, 1987. Roberts is the flavor genius behind the menu at Trump’s, the haven of munchers and crunchers on L.A.’s Melrose Avenue. Roberts’ book promises a “semi-revolutionary” way of cooking, training the reader to break down a recipe into three fundamental elements--kind of like a wardrobe reorganization--and instructing readers how to shift elements to create new combinations.

WAR AND PEACE: Not since Ernest Hemingway collected the military stories of his era in a book called “Men at War” has there been a major anthology of war tales by leading contemporary authors. But mindful that war has been a big topic in recent fiction, Bantam Books will this fall publish “Soldiers and Civilians,” spanning the American war involvement from the Civil War through Vietnam.

“About half the stories deal directly with war or military life,” reports the book’s creator, Scribner’s senior editor Tom Jenks. The remainder will be civilian, Jenks said, but with “the voice of war in the background, often very distant as it is in life.” Authors expected to contribute to the volume include Bobbie Ann Mason, Mark Helprin, Bob Schacochis, John Sayles, Tobias Wolfe and Jayne Ann Phillips.

GOLDEN OLDIES: California history junkies will find satisfaction in the two-volume “Zamorano Index to the History of California by Hubert Howe Bancroft,” published in December in a first edition of 1,000 copies by the University of Southern California. Detailing the Golden State’s history from the Spanish voyages of exploration in the 16th Century through the post-Civil War period, Bancroft’s seven-volume, 5,063-page history was originally published between 1884 and 1890. The new index logs in at more than 900 pages, and was compiled by members of the Zamorano Club of Los Angeles, an association formed in 1928 by a group of people who shared a common interest in books and fine printing. The club takes its name from California’s first printer, Vicente Zamorano.

Further information on the new index may be obtained by calling USC history professor Doyce Nunis at (213) 743-7351.