SHORT TAKES : Trump Reflective in New Book

The buoyant, supremely confident Donald Trump of his first book, “The Art of the Deal,” has given way to a man sobered by the breakup of his marriage and the near-insolvency of his real estate and casino empire.

In his new book, “Trump: Surviving at the Top,” the financier thinks money is uninteresting, publicity is dehumanizing and life affords no protection from its tragedies and the passage of time.

Trump admits that even he got caught up in the ‘80s buying frenzy, and explains why he paid so much for the Plaza Hotel, the Eastern Shuttle and other “trophy properties” that brought him to the edge of bankruptcy.

“For me, you see, the important thing is the getting,” he writes, “not the having.”

To capitalize on some of his problems, Random House moved up publication of the book from October and ordered 500,000 copies for the first printing.

Trump is vague on the subject of his estranged wife, Ivana.

He says the two grew apart, but he extols her many fine qualities and insists that although the couple “seem to be headed in different directions . . . I don’t know what the outcome of my separation will be.”