• • • The Virtue of Selfishness: A New Concept of Egoism (1964) 
David Wilson, South China Morning Post The Virtue of Selfishness  Egoism  Personal life  (Requires subscription.)Nowhere in Rand's ascendant nicety-free canon is her take on politics expressed with more verve and venom than the essay collection The Virtue of Selfishness. The Neocon bible expounds Rand's philosophy, which she called "objectivist" in a foretaste of the equally dubious Fox News slogan: "The Spin stops here". About as objective as The Narnia Chronicles, Rand's gut-instinct tract exalts egotism as a rational code of ethics and slams socialism as a vice. A selfish, non-sacrificial way of life is possible and the only way to be, according to Rand, whose individualist take on how to live could be seen as an affront to Christianity, Confucianism and several other belief systems that place hope in community. Rand's Darwinian outlook, which makes Britain's Iron Lady Margaret Thatcher appear warm and fuzzy, must stem from her upbringing in Soviet Russia. [....] Rand can be so short on rigour that she resembles a crazed cult leader. Her claim that extremity equates with consistency is just one example of her borderline lunacy, which can be toxic. Elsewhere in the book, she is even more virulent. Despite Rand's fanaticism, The Virtue of Selfishness remains a compelling reflection of her spectacularly dysfunctional mind and a masterclass in the waspish art of polemic. Stinging.     Share on Facebook

• • Editors’ picks 
C. Rollyson, Choice Atlas Shrugged  The Fountainhead  The Virtue of Selfishness  We The Living  Capitalism  Egoism  Personal life  Review of Ayn Rand and the World She Made, by Anne C. Heller.Although not stinting a concern with Rand's ideas, Heller is mesmerized by Rand the novelist and the person. The biographer pores over Rand's early years in Russia with brilliant results, showing how much Rand (born Alissa Zinovievna Rosenbaum) drew on her experience in the 1920s Leninist state for her impressive novel We the Living.     Share on Facebook

• • Fallen role models - keeping the value 
Somik Raha, Desicritics.org (India) Personal life  Inaccurate  Me: I find it very hard to follow Ayn Rand's philosophy, after learning that she died insane. I was very influenced by her writing, but decided to throw it all out after knowing about her personal life. Prof: I used to know a Buddhist teacher many years back, who was very high up in this country. He used to give wonderful enlightening sermons. Then one day, he was found to be a pedophile. I found myself questioning whether the knowledge I'd received from him should be thrown away. It was clear to me that whatever he had said about truth, compassion and love was invaluable, and had helped me in my own life. Nothing he did changed the value of his message for me, so it made no sense to throw out what he said because he could not live up to it.     Share on Facebook

• • • Yevgeny Zamyatin: Libertarian novelist 
Jeff Riggenbach, Mises.org Daily Article Anthem  Atlas Shrugged  We The Living  Personal life  Whatever we decide about whether Rand read We in the '20s or '30s, there's simply no getting around the obvious similarities between Zamyatin's novel and Rand's Anthem. Both are set in the far future in a completely collectivized totalitarian society. Both are told in the first person by their main characters, in We by the mathematician and engineer D-503, in Anthem by the engineer Equality 7-2521. Anthem is the only work of fiction written by Rand to be written in the first person. In We, D-503 meets a woman, I-330, and is led inexorably down a path to rebellion against the government of the society in which he lives. In Anthem, Equality 7-2521 meets a woman, Liberty 5-3000, and is led inexorably down a path to rebellion against the government of the society in which he lives.     Share on Facebook

• • Not quite a bull’s-eye 
Daniel M. Ryan, Enter Stage Right Personal life  Review of the book Panderer to Power: The Untold Story of How Alan Greenspan Enriched Wall Street and Left a Legacy of Recession, by Frederick Sheehan.[Frederick] Sheehan goes out of his way to highlight Ayn Rand's first impression of [Alan Greenspan] when they met: "'Do you think Alan might basically be a social climber?'" (p. 9.) This quote serves as a leitmotif of the book as Sheehan digs into Greenspan's later life. He decided that the other Greenspan – the man who hitched his wagon to Arthur Burns's star early on – was the real Greenspan. The impression he conveys is that Greenspan wasn't even much of an Objectivist, although Sheehan doesn't intimate that Greenspan was drawn into Rand's inner circle out of a desire to rub shoulders with a popular novelist. He presents Greenspan as a man who did believe in Rand's philosophy in his own way, but shed it while ascending the socio-political heights. Like many libertarian critics of Greenspan, Sheehan brandishes "Gold And Economic Freedom" as a reproach – even if he holds his nose a little while doing so.     Share on Facebook

• •From canyon to cove: A visit to Hangover House 
Cindy Frazier, Coastline Pilot (Laguna Beach, CA) Ayn Rand Archives  Ayn Rand Institute  The Fountainhead  Personal life  As one might expect of such an old and notable dwelling [Hangover House] has its mysteries and urban legends. One such legend surrounds a purported visit that Ayn Rand made to the home before writing her monumental novel about a modernist architect, “The Fountainhead,” where she allegedly interviewed [architect William Alexander] Levy about his theories of architecture. Levy apparently believed that some of his words and ideas were used in Rand’s book, and that scenes in “The Fountainhead” were set in Hangover House. But Benec said this is now being debunked by a representative of the Ayn Rand Archives in Irvine who responded to Benec’s original house listing with a letter citing various facts to prove that Rand “did not set foot in California” from 1934 to 1943 and therefore could not have visited the house or used it in her novel. The archivist also said there is no written evidence, such as notes, in her papers indicating a link between Rand and Levy. “They said it is not possible,” Benec said. But the story persists.     Share on Facebook

• • In praise of rattling good typewriters 
Sunday Business Post Personal life  The best-selling machines include models favoured by famous writers - these include Remington, Smith-Corona and Olivetti, makes favoured by Tennessee Williams. There is also a 1931 Remington Rand Portable, as used by Ayn Rand - the story that she took her name from the machine is a fiction, it is more likely that she chose the brand because it shared her name.     Share on Facebook

• • Lexicon 
Edmonton Journal Atlas Shrugged  Capitalism  Personal life  Ayn Rand -- An influential writer, philosopher and defender of capitalism. Best known for her novel Atlas Shrugged. A floral arrangement shaped like a dollar sign was placed near her casket at her funeral in 1982.     Share on Facebook

• Body of murdered autistic boy, 8, retrieved from city morgue 
Nicole Bode, DNAinfo (New York) Personal life  Representatives from the Frank E. Campbell Funeral Home picked up Jude Michael Mirra, who was found dead last Friday on the bed of the Peninsula Hotel in Midtown, around 1 p.m. on Tuesday, a spokeswoman for the city's medical examiner said. [....] The Upper East Side funeral home has handled a series of high-profile funeral services, including actor Heath Ledger, author Ayn Rand, and R&B singer Aaliyah.     Share on Facebook

• • Economic recovery: Demanding more purchasing power 
Bill Bonner, Daily Reckoning Capitalism  Personal life  Alan Greenspan was a knave, no doubt about it. But he understood how money worked. He was even a follower of Ayn Rand and a member of the libertarian collective in New York. When he joined the presidents council of economic advisors, Rand was on the scene. She said she had her man in Washington. Trouble was, her man was a sell-out. His convictions were no more solid than ocean foam. They disappeared as soon as he got to the capitol. After that, he spoke in gobbledygook sentences that no one could decipher…and played the game.     Share on Facebook

• • • Ayn Rand: Engineer of souls 
Anthony Daniels, The New Criterion Altruism  Atheism  Ayn Rand Institute  Atlas Shrugged  The Fountainhead  Capitalism  Egoism  Leonard Peikoff  Personal life  Review of Ayn Rand and the World She Made, by Anne C. Heller.Rand’s virtues were as follows: she was highly intelligent; she was brave and uncompromising in defense of her ideas; she had a kind of iron integrity; and, though a fierce defender of capitalism, she was by no means avid for money herself. The propagation of truth as she saw it was far more important to her than her own material ease. Her vices, of course, were the mirror-image of her virtues, but, in my opinion, the mirror was a magnifying one. Her intelligence was narrow rather than broad. Though in theory a defender of freedom of thought and action, she was dogmatic, inflexible, and intolerant, not only in opinion but in behavior, and it led her to personal cruelty. In the name of her ideas, she was prepared to be deeply unpleasant. She hardened her ideas into ideology. Her integrity led to a lack of self-criticism; she frequently wrote twenty thousand words where one would do.     Share on Facebook

• • • Ayn Rand and business 
Mandy De Waal, ITWeb Ayn Rand Institute  Atlas Shrugged  The Fountainhead  Capitalism  Egoism  Leonard Peikoff  Personal life  Yaron Brook  Inaccurate  Includes abstract of the book Ayn Rand and Business, by Donna Greiner and Theodore Kinni.Born 105 years ago, Ayn Rand's thinking is experiencing a major revival. The Washington Post declared Randoids 'in' for 2010; Hollywood is remaking her movies; and Rand book sales are brisk. Yaron Brook, president of the Ayn Rand Institute, says sales of Atlas Shrugged are “going through the roof”. Rand's magnum opus made it into Amazon.com's top 50, selling more than 500 000 copies in 2009.     Share on Facebook

• February, you just never know 
Carl Keith Greene, Times-Tribune (Corbin, KY) Personal life  It’s interesting how many famous people were born in February. On the first, Kentucky pop singer Don Everly, the second saw the nativity of writers Ayn Rand and James Joyce and one of my favorite guys, Tom Smothers.     Share on Facebook

• The almanac 
United Press International Personal life  Those born on this date are under the sign of Aquarius. They include [...] novelist Ayn Rand in 1905.     Share on Facebook

• • Mogul request live 
Emily Geminder, New York Observer The Fountainhead  Personal life  In 1937, a budding, blocked novelist known as Ayn Rand spent six months in [Ely Jaques] Kahn's office, volunteering as a file clerk while she worked out the elusive gaps in what would become The Fountainhead. Guy Francon, the social-climbing, mediocre architect, was inspired by her boss. By 1972, the 2 million-square-foot 1515 Broadway, with its conciliatory Minskoff Theater, stood in the Astor's place—a 54-story ode to moneymaking that would have done Rand proud.     Share on Facebook

• • • Jury duty: Ayn Rand play opens at Owasso High 
Karen Shade, Tulsa World Ayn Rand Institute  Atlas Shrugged  Night of January 16th  The Fountainhead  The Virtue of Selfishness  Capitalism  Personal life  Two thoughts arise when you consider the Owasso Community Theatre's next production. Correction — first comes an exclamation and then a question: "I didn't realize Ayn Rand wrote a play. And why is Owasso Community Theatre producing it?” “I've had a lot of people who've told me, 'I didn't know she'd written any plays,' " said George Romero, the play's director. "She did not think of herself as a playwright at all. I think she was even a bit embarrassed by her playwriting skills because she thought of herself as more of a novelist and philosopher and political theorist."     Share on Facebook

• • • Goddess of the right, but Rand was prone to human weakness 
Donal Lynch, The Independent (Dublin) Altruism  Egoism  Personal life  Review of Ayn Rand and the World She Made, by Anne C. Heller.One of the most enjoyable parts of this book is that it doesn't get drawn into the political polarisation. It instead critically examines the strengths and weaknesses of Rand's writings and contrasts the writer's authoritative philosophy with her rather more human, grey-area existence.     Share on Facebook

• • • Stossel - January 7, 2010 
John Stossel, Fox Business - Stossel Altruism  Atlas Shrugged movie  Ayn Rand Institute  Atlas Shrugged  Capitalism  Egoism  Personal life  Yaron Brook  Video  (Link is to Part 1; all parts: Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5, Part 6.)     Share on Facebook

• • • Objectivists expand presence 
Jordan Carr, Stanford Review (Stanford U, CA) Altruism  Atheism  Ayn Rand Institute  Atlas Shrugged  The Fountainhead  Capitalism  Personal life  Yaron Brook  Image  If you are wondering whether or not the Objectivist revival at Stanford is a sign of an attitudinal shift in our generation; simply put, it is not. It is no coincidence that Objectivism’s presence at Stanford and at other college campuses is disproportionate to its national influence. Objectivism’s appeal is greatest to students with minimal responsibilities to others, and it does not work within the context of most adults’ lives. One wonders how many of today’s objectivists will remain when it is their turn to write the tuition checks.     Share on Facebook

• • • Going Galt, going crazy 
Daniel Johnson, Salem-News (OR) Atlas Shrugged  The Fountainhead  Personal life  Objectivism is a rabid, anti-social philosophy. The justification to not give a damn about the weak is an attractive concept for many Objectivists—reflecting their own insecurities. She took literally the dog-eat-dog philosophy of social Darwinism basing most of her philosophy on business ideas of the 1920s.     Share on Facebook