DOOOD! It’s three EASY TO READ books!
Atlas Shrugged is a masterpiece. But it is 1,000+ pages of 4pt font. It took me 1 hour to read 30 pages, and I needed a thesaurus at times. It made me smarter, but it wasn’t easy!
In terms of Rand, easy AND illuminating, you can’t beat “Anthem.” My 10th grade English teacher ASSIGNED that book to us, which coincided personally with my getting into Rush. It was perfect. Parenthetically, my English teacher would be burned at the stake nowadays.
“Free To Choose” by Milton Friedman was revolutionary.
Rounding out my list isn’t a book, but the best contemporary piece about liberty, safety, responsibility, all under the guise of the 2nd Amendment: Jeffrey Snyder’s “A Nation of Cowards” - https://freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/3440463/posts
Hahaha...I admit it. When I read Atlas Shrugged (I just put 5000 miles on my car in two weeks last month, and listened to all 36 hours of Atlas Shrugged) I skip over the John Galt Speech...although I listened to it while driving!
I really feel she beats it to a bloody pulp, the point she is trying to get across there in the Galt Speech. Heh, she could have got that point across in a page or two, but good gosh, she just goes on and on.
She is an odd duck, no doubt. One definitely gets the impression she would be into S&M, domination, bondage, or something bizarre, the way she writes, but...even with all that, it is not why I appreciate the book.
I am, and have been attracted to the book from the very first time I read it because of the way she portrays the looters, and a tyrannical government. She accurately captures the arc that a government run on Leftist principles, subjective principles, will follow.
I am a devotee of the book because of the way she portrays Leftist legislation from a corrupt government. “The Anti-Dog Eat Dog Rule”, but most of all...
“Directive 10-289”.
For much the same reason I admire Orwell, he saw clearly where we are going, so too did Ayn Rand.