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Ayn Rand For Beginners
(For Beginners)
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Ayn Rand, author of the best-selling novels, The Fountainhead and Atlas Shrugged, is beloved by millions of readers, and equally despised by a significant number of detractors. Her novels and her revolutionary philosophy of Objectivism have acquired a world-wide following. They have also created legions of readers who are hungry for a deeper understanding of her writings.
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Paperback, 112 pages
Published
August 18th 2009
by For Beginners
(first published July 14th 2009)
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This book effectively communicates Ayn Rand's ideas as it sets out to do. Fountainhead and Atlas Shrugged are long books, so I appreciated that this gave a trite summary, overviewed the themes in her books, and then overviewed her philosophy of Objectivism. I give it 4 stars for its clarity.
However, given that the author himself appears influenced by Rand's ideas, I thought that there lacked critical discourse about her ideas. He failed to present strong arguments against Rand's political philos ...more
However, given that the author himself appears influenced by Rand's ideas, I thought that there lacked critical discourse about her ideas. He failed to present strong arguments against Rand's political philos ...more

I was surprised and disappointed that this book, which I took to be illustrated similar to a graphic novel, was instead illustrated on every other page or so with what I would describe in most cases as clip art. I think the authors missed an opportunity to expand on the verbiage with additional information in the graphics. Otherwise, this was an interesting summary, mostly of Rand’s two biggest novels. Having just watched the movie version of both, I found the descriptions did add to what you co
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This short appraisal of Ayn Rand's life and works provides a decent, if somewhat one sided, introduction to her philosophy. The writer covers the details in a prose that is simple and effective but on occasions is gushingly supportive. What it lacks is a critical analysis of Objectivism to the same depth it details the philosophy. Rand is portrayed as indubitably controversial in her views but the writer never really gets into the meat of why and how Objectivism seeks to meet the claims against
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Read it to understand Rand better now that I have done so I still Royally dislike her as a person and her political point of view and that she completely made up a name of a kind of philosophy that to me is ANYTHING but valid. I feel and think her political and economic ideas are completely invalid and do not even remotely follow and sound facts based on Real Economic science.... As the main character said in Vonnegut's book "the cats cradle" rAND IDEAS "ARE FOMA AND FOMA ARE LIES...!"
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A great introduction for those of us who are as wary of wading into tomes as we are of intellectual flame wars, and didn't have it force-fed to us in high school.
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Here is a simple introduction to the life and philosophy of Ayn Rand. Along with being the founder of Objectivism, she also wrote Atlas Shrugged and The Fountainhead, two of the 20th Century’s most famous novels.
The Fountainhead takes place in the 1920s and 1930s, and is about Howard Roark, a modernist architect in a society that prefers buildings that look like Gothic cathedrals or Greek temples. He is expelled from college, gets fired from one job and loses commissions because of his absolute ...more
The Fountainhead takes place in the 1920s and 1930s, and is about Howard Roark, a modernist architect in a society that prefers buildings that look like Gothic cathedrals or Greek temples. He is expelled from college, gets fired from one job and loses commissions because of his absolute ...more

This wildly uncritical, fawning hagiography reads like a Jack Chick tract. It serves as a quick overview of Ayn Rand's novels and objectivism, but the prose is excruciating.
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For the series, I expected something a bit more, ahem, objective. This one is unabashedly promoting Rand's ideas. Even more annoying, he does not discuss WE THE LIVING at ALL.
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