RoR: Forum

Thanks for the advance notice. I clicked the Amazon link and pre-ordered the book. Even at $15 retail, it seems cheap.

Post 1

Sunday, September 25, 2005 - 11:01am

Sadly, that's the price of the average paperback nowadays. I was expecting this to be a mass-market, since most of her books are available that way, but they're probably using the fact that it's new.
Off topic, the cover's not so bad, but I don't like the reissue covers in the same style for the centennial. I like the art-deco ones better. These are trying to hard to be modern and iPod like. :P
(Edited by Joe Maurone
on 9/25, 11:02am)

Post 2

Sunday, September 25, 2005 - 1:47pm

Book sounds great. I'm gonna have to budget some money for it.

Also I don't really like the new covers either. I'm kind of wishing the Bryan Larsen pieces that were obviously intended to be considered as cover pieces could've made the cut. Such is life/Peikoff.

---Landon

Post 3

Sunday, September 25, 2005 - 5:56pm

Does anyone know anything about the editor of book?

Post 4

Sunday, September 25, 2005 - 7:08pm

Joe, thanks for letting everyone know. Maybe you can read it to me at band camp. :-)

(just kidding - no band camp for me... I have about as much musical talent as Linda McCartney)

Post 5

Sunday, September 25, 2005 - 7:20pm

True - she can't even play the celery good... :-)

Post 6

Sunday, September 25, 2005 - 8:28pm

Jody,
Can you be more specific? Robert Mayhew has been editing and writing books related to Objectivism (sometimes under the auspices of ARI) for years. Is that what you're looking for?

Bio:
http://artsci.shu.edu/philosophy/faculty/mayhew.htm

(Edited by Jeff Perren on 9/25, 8:31pm)

Post 7

Sunday, September 25, 2005 - 8:36pm

She played Paul pretty well...

Post 8

Sunday, September 25, 2005 - 9:17pm

She played Paul pretty well...

Oh my gawd, I laughed myself silly. Good one. :-)

Continuing to veer off-topic, here's a clip of Linda McCartney, supposedly during a soundcheck of "Hey Jude" with her husband and Wings. The story goes that a disgruntled engineer isolated her vocals (such as they are), sent it out to a few friends, and the rest is history.

http://www.vandykeparks.com/GMA/lmccartney.mp3

Note: I can't sing even that well. It makes me wonder if Ayn Rand could sing (I can't imagine her singing "Hey Jude" tho).

Post 9

Sunday, September 25, 2005 - 9:37pm

Woah....

Now, the shame is that if you put Yoko's name on it, it would sell...

Post 10

Monday, September 26, 2005 - 12:17am

What a crock! I already know Ayn Rand "at her best"! How about Ayn Rand at her worst? Not to drag her down, for I suspect at her worst she still is the best--well, almost. Certainly most interesting!

--Brant

Post 11

Friday, November 4, 2005 - 11:08pm

I just got the book, and it is easily worth ten times its price. This is the real Ayn Rand, not the docufictional figure in the alleged "biographies."

Rand always speaks her mind clearly, even about a doctrine so horrid that "altruism becomes almost too clean a concept by comparison." See page 127. The book is a gem.

(Edited by Adam Reed
on 11/04, 11:16pm)

Post 12

Saturday, November 5, 2005 - 11:25am

Sorry, I looked for this thread and did not find it. So, I reviewed the book here:

http://solohq.com/Forum/ObjectivismQ&A/0147.shtml

"Rand was very well aware of the fact that she could not assume that her audience had read Galt's Speech with a highlighter in hand. Therefore, her spoken words are at once illuminating and insightful -- and also provocative and challenging. To me, reading these, I could see that what she was doing was planting seeds of thought.

Buy the book and decide for yourself which of her ideas have taken root and blossomed."

Post 13

Sunday, November 6, 2005 - 6:59am

It is sad to see the later Ayn Rand versus the earlier Ayn Rand.

There she was at one of Leonard Peikoff's study sessions in 1978 and someone asks an question and she labels it "dishonest." If it had been a Ford Hall Forum in 1968 or something, fine, she got barbs tossed at her and she was looking forward to it, but by 1978, certainly with Leonard Peikoff checking IDs at the gate, who would have been there but a lapdog? And she slapped him. Sad.

Post 14

Wednesday, November 9, 2005 - 6:45pm

"Peppery Ayn Rand Taken With a Grain of Salt" is the headline of a newspaper clipping I have from 1965 or so and that sums up this book. I am enjoying it immensely. For better or worse, on good days and bad, richly rewarding or poorly lacking, sick to death of socialism and offering a healthy alternative,I am married to this woman's ideas.

The early Ayn Rand is best. Speaking on the subject of "The Political Vacuum of Our Age," in 1961, she recommended that everyone who can afford them go out and get large purple Cadillacs to show John Kenneth Galbraith what they think of his ideas.

Her stories of the Hollywood communists are passionate first person narratives.

If you do not own this book yet, the question you need to answer is: Why not?

Post 15

Sunday, November 13, 2005 - 8:29pm

I look forward to getting this book. I was present at one of those Ford Hall Forum sessions and the other I caught on the radio because I could not get a seat at the Ford Hall Forum, so it will be a treat for my memory.

(btw - Come on, Adam. Praise Rand for what she is. Using praise for her to take a pot shot at the Brandens isn't even in the same context.)

Michael

Post 16

Sunday, November 13, 2005 - 9:24pm

Pot shot at the Brandens? There is no excuse for that assumption - I even gave you the page number...

Post 17

Sunday, November 13, 2005 - 9:31pm

What does this mean, then?

This is the real Ayn Rand, not the docufictional figure in the alleged "biographies."

Maybe I misunderstood.

Michael

Post 18

Sunday, November 13, 2005 - 9:43pm

Michael,

"Ayn Rand - A Sense Of Life" was just as docufictional as anything by either Branden. And I certainly did mean to include it in my comment.

Post 19

Sunday, November 13, 2005 - 10:09pm