Rating: 
Summary: Should be required reading
Review: This book should be required reading by every student in a democracy. I hope the [chemical] companies do not "shrug" do to the pressure they get from government.
Rating:
Summary: Better than Magnificent
Review: I'm a reader. I read all the time, all sorts of books. To put it simply, out of the hundreds (thousands?) of books I've read, this book is my all-time favorite. 'Nuff said.
Rating:
Summary: Essential Book For Thinker
Review: Whenever I see rich liberal demogogues like Kennedy, the Vanderbilts, Crocks, etc. preaching their "We'll tax the rich and pay for your vote," I think of how important this work is to cracking open the average skull and imparting wisdom to its confines. This book shows the result of liberal thinking: utter destruction. When we punish the productive for being productive, we end up with a less productive society. The heroine of this story is a tough, ultra effective railroad woman who has to fight her inept brother (struggling to weasel his way into dominance of all rail traffic--and keep his sister at bay) in order to keep the wheels of her trains running, never realizing all the productive people on the planet were leaving, waiting, watching. They would reinvent the world once the something-for-nothing liberals had run their course and run their country and world into the ground. If you're a liberal/democrat, see if you're tough enough to read this book. I used to be there but now I have seen the truth.
Rating:
Summary: Should be required reading
Review: The book caught my eye because of its immense size and interesting cover. I thought to my self this would be a good book to read, knowing nothing about the author, or the contents of the book, going only on the gut feeling I had that this was an intellectually good book.
The readers finds them self in an epic time of industrialization, but towards the end of the process. Trains are still the primary mode of transportation, and industrial titans run the country. Ayn Rand takes license with the environment of the story: it is most like an America in the 1920Õs with the technological innovations of the 50Õs.
The book, philosophical message aside, is an enthralling action adventure story with twists turns after every seeming resolution. The heroÕs and villains are gigantic, towering, representing the extreme of their evil. Rand paints such a vivid picture that as I was reading through the book I found my personality and worldview actually shifting as the book delves deep and deep into the philosophical mean it hopes to permit.
RandÕs philosophy ÒObjectivismÓ seems extreme to critics because one of the main tenants is that selfishness is the ultimate virtue. At first I was critical of the philosophy but I would challenge anyone to read this lengthy (1200 pages) and not at least respect Ayn RandÕs ideas.
Rating:
Summary: A More Modern Nietzsche
Review: This is a book that exposes a lot of "high minded" schemes for what they really are - attempts to gain money,prestige, and power by deception and by taking another's contributions. Productive people will find truth in Ayn Rand's words. Unproductive people will hate this book for exposing their true worth. This is a long, sometimes tedious but entertaining book that will be long remembered by the reader who invests time in reading it.
Rating: 
Summary: Think!
Review: Ayn Rand's jerky literary style is a touch hard-edged. It doesn't have the poetic flow of a Kerouac or Hemingway. The dialogue is not witty and the characters are just a touch wooden.However, the story is beautiful. It teaches one to rise from the pool of mediocrity that is failure. The plot is one of triumph over tragedy and victory over bleeding heart drama. The book also makes an almost unarguable case for capitalism. We watch the decay of our country as the government grips tighter to save our society, only to see it slip through their fingers like sand. The book is a necessity for all those who treasure the freedom that most have taken for granted, the freedom to think. Though not exactly a piece of art, Atlas Shrugged is a manifesto for the true intellectual, teaching that each and every person should build their lives in pride, disregarding forces that would rob them of their free will. There are points in which Ayn Rand has flung aside some necessary rubbish of humanity. Spirituality for instance. Her very own characters are an argument for the importance of faith in dire situations, such as the hobo that jumps her train. He has criss-crossed America working in one closing factory after another, and he has hit the end. The man has no where to go and nothing to live for. Here is where he should put his trust in himself, faith in his ability to survive, in the very wilderness if he must. I suggest reading "The Cliff Walk" for more thoughts on this. Also, though only briefly addressed in Atlas Shrugged, Ayn Rand downplays the importance of raw human emotion in art, but I say what is the point, for then you've removed humanity from the humanities.
Rating: 
Summary: Spare yourself
Review: I won't bother with criticizing Rand's prose or plot or characters; suffice to say they're (respectively) as banal, and contrived, and wooden as in her other novels. I just want to make a point that hasn't been mentioned much in previous reviews: This is not philosophy. Nor is it a fictional exposition of any philosophy. Rand was not, by any reasonable measure of the word, a philosopher. She was a demagogue, and her strengths, if they can be called that, were that she was long-winded and loud. Her writing, here as elsewhere, bespeaks a gaping ignorance of a the whole of philosophy and and a flat inability to *think through* the issues she purports to deal with. Why is the opposite perception so common? Because she repeatedly *tells* you that she is being rational, is supporting Objective Thought and Reason and Truth. But saying that doesn't make it so. It does, however, make the book very persuasive to people who are easily taken in by slogans and platitudes. Hence its fans, patting themselves on the back after finishing such a big tome, can happily tell themselves that they were convinced by Brilliant, Original Thinking, and Profound Ideas; when in fact they were taken in by merely being told that they had been Rationally Convinced. Bluntly, you will meet no one of decent intellect--and who actually makes *use* of it--above the age of, maybe, twenty, who gives any significant credence to Rand's ideas. And no one at all who has studied philosophy and does so. There is no intellectual meat here.
Rating: 
Summary: A somewhat shortsighted view of the world
Review: Ayn Rand set out to make this book be a testament to what the world could be like if we all just accepted what it means to be human and accept responsibility for our actions. The story is okay, but by anybody's standards, contrived. The book suffers from an overly simplistic outlook of reality. It has heroes and villains but no in betweens. Ayn rand tries to manifest her heroes' ideologies in the creation of a perfect utopia where government doesn't interfere and individuals are responsible. Unfortunately she is trying to portray reality through the vehicle of extreme contrivance. Overall it turns into a two dimensional battlefield of us versus them. The heroes are always right and the villains always wrong. I sympathize with Rand in wanting to view the world this way, Religions survive and propagate themselves on the very principle of this dichotomy (or rather dichotomies in general, they all have varying reference points), but unfortunately the real world is not nearly this simple. It isn't merely a matter of looking at the whole world, realizing that everyone else is wrong and would all be better off if they merely listened to those who are right. It is more closely approximated by saying that the world is full of diverse opinions and thoughts, nobody is perfect, sometimes they help, sometimes they hurt, but in the end we have to make choices with imperfect information, which leads to both adequate and inadequate conclusions. Rand seems to think that the conclusions are obvious, those who can't see them stupid, and misunderstands why we can't just see it. It is the fact that we all do see it, but just see it differently that makes this book a little too simple. As a story it would be fine, but knowing what Ayn Rand was trying to achieve it falls short of the mark.
Rating:
Summary: Atlas Shrugged: The Book that changed my life
Review: What is wrong with the world? Ayn Rand answers this question in her novel 'Atlas Shrugged'. Atlas shrugged is a novel about the conflict between good and evil. But, this conflict is seen in a startlingly new perspective. Growing up, I was exposed to Hindu, Muslim, and Christian religions as well as communism. After a careful examination I had concluded that all of them were good. All of them preached the virtue of sacrifice and the evil of pride and selfishness. My concept of the good was shaken after I read Atlas shrugged. Atlas Shrugged is a story about ingenuous, proud and productive businessmen who are morally condemned by philosophers of altruism. These businessmen who have an immense love of life, who rely on the use of reason and technology to attain their selfish goals and who never strive for anything at the expense of others, are shown to be the symbols of the good. Intellectuals and politicians preaching altruism and selflessness are shown to be evil. Smearing the selfish morality of the businessmen and claiming to have noble altruistic goals, politicians exploit their productivity and wealth and pass a string of restrictive regulations. Because of their passion for life and extreme capabilities, the morally condemned and politically strangled businessmen keep on producing. They never question altruism and hence accept an unearned guilt. People take this for granted. Businessmen ultimately realize this and go on strike. Without the mind and effort of businessmen US economy collapses. Reason, selfishness and productivity are convincingly shown to be indispensable for the survival of mankind. Atlas Shrugged is a powerful story about heroes. Within a masterful plot it covers topics ranging from metaphysics to politics to psychology. For anyone who is interested in knowing 'What is wrong with the world' Atlas Shrugged is a must.
Rating:
Summary: A great book to make you think
Review: This book is rightly considered a classic of our age. It is a celebration of capitalism and rationality. If you are in business or know someone who is, if you've ever secretly thought that you're not worth what they're paying you, this should be required reading. It helps to remember that this book was written in the early 1950s when Communism and Socialism were on the rise and well before most people could see the inherent weaknesses of those social codes. Now that we've seen the world through the tax revolts of Scandinavian socialism, the Thatcher/Reagan years, the fall of the Soviet Union and the commercialization of China, it's easy to forget how many people were predicting the death of capitalism and individualism. History is proving that Rand was right. Individualism wins. All that said, this book is a hard work to get through. Rand frequently spends hours lecturing the reader on her philosophical point of view. I was particularly frustrated with the 50+ page "radio address" near the end of the book. I get it already. I got it three or four hundred pages ago. I also found the emotions of the characters to be very stilted - no shading or nuance to make them come alive. (And the sex scenes were just weird. Very dominance-obsessed.) On a philosophical note, I strongly agree with her that individual responsibility and individual rights trump collective rights. However, I believe she runs into trouble when you take her arguments to the logical extreme. Two points worth highlighting: Rand argues that all men are or should be rational 100% of the time. We know a great deal more about the mechanics of the mind (both biological and psychological) than was known when this novel was written. Not all men can be rational all the time. To ignore the non-rational levers on our behavior is to sacrifice half your arsenal and to leave yourself prey to those who can pull the levers better than you. Second, I am not so sure that we would be well served by jettisoning all the non-rational social constructs that evolved with our species and our culture. Rand argues that all value must be based on trade. I argue that certain examples of what we usually think of as altruism are in my own best interest - I will pay for public schooling of others to increase the chances that you will become a productive employee rather than a mugger who threatens my life. Rand would argue that I've just proven that altruism does not exist. I agree. My point, though, is that we evolved the social behavior of helping others long before anyone could articulate the cause-and-effect leading to my rational self-interest. What else would Rand argue against that has a rational basis which we just don't understand yet?
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