[Pippin]

Oh, I thought you were talikng about Tolkien’s work being preachy, I’m noy familier with Ayn Rand. But you say she is preachy in her works.

[sionnsar]

In Ayn Rand's novels her protagonists often make longwinded speeches about what they believe and practice. It's a little heavy-handed for my taste and I don't agree 100% with "them," but her books are a good political read.

Pretty apolitical at the time (except for being a Republican at the time because I grew up in a Republican family) I read Atlas Shrugged and The Fountainhead when I was about 18. I think those helped direct me towards conservatism long before I could define it -- and when I discovered Solzhenitsyn 3 or 4 years later, near the beginning of my "Russian authors" decade, that helped refine my direction.

They are apparently making a movie from Atlas Shrugged. My big fear is that they'll totally mess it up (sort of the way they did Heinlein's Starship Troopers). When it's released I'm going to wait for the reviews; if it's bad I'm not spending a dime on it.