[beavus]

Supposedly one of the most widely read books in the country, but you wouldn't know it by talking with people. My guess is that most people who read it are teenage girls and think it is a romance novel.

[PianoMan]

My guess is that most people who read it are teenage girls and think it is a romance novel.

Why would you say that? I've heard conversations about Ayn Rand come up lots of times in literate circles. Usually the consensus is that the Fountainhead is a great book, and Atlas Shrugged is a lot weaker as a novel, but has a lot of provocative ideas.

I find intellectuals and people on the left give her a lot of props and respect these days. They have a mature relationship with her, admiring some things, diasagreeing with many, without feeling the need to either join her cult following, or paint her as the anti-christ.

[ShadowDancer]

My guess is that most people who read it are teenage girls and think it is a romance novel.

Please tell me you're drunk.

[InterceptPoint]

Supposedly one of the most widely read books in the country, but you wouldn't know it by talking with people. My guess is that most people who read it are teenage girls and think it is a romance novel.

You're just not talking to the right crowd. I've read it twice and am now listening to the audio version of it while working out.

My mother has read it twice.

My father has read it.

My son-in-law has read it and has begun reading it a second time.

My son-in-law to be is reading it.

None of these people are teenage girls. The book is ranked at #434 on Amazon 48 years after it was first published. That's pretty good.

[bayourod]

I thought it was a science fiction novel and found it too psychobabblish to get more than a couple hundred pages.

[cannon fodder]

in '75 my sisters read it (AS) and both proclaimed it the best thing they had ever read, I was still contemplating Zen and Art of Motorcycle Maintenance and it took me till 2000 to read it(AS). They are both successful professional women and I slave in a blue collar world. I wish I had read it sooner.