Sound principles, btw. But, I think, misapplied when it comes to Rand. See below.
We had to read The Fountainhead as part of freshmen orientation at
> college. Then I read Atlas Shrugged to see what all the hype was
> about.
>
> The former is a little more interesting as a novel. The latter is
> just long and boring and not so well-written. Mostly those that cite
> it as their favorite book have poor taste in literature, more than
> anything.
Well, not quite, and yet probably. That is, it may well be the only thing they've ever read that was really written about ideas. But I generalize. I do remember thinking that Ragnar Daneskjöld was a cool name for a character, but he's a minor character.
If I want to read well-written and interesting arguments for something
> akin to Randian politics, I'll go with Reason Magazine.
i think that's the right answer. Reason is much more interesting than anything of Rand's that I've ever read.
I had to read _Atlas Shrugged_ in high school, and in those days I was the sort of person who would read anything to avoid doing homework. I would sit in my bedroom with my math book open in my lap and something like dumas' _the three musketeers_ open inside it, so that if mom came in, it looked like i was working on homework. Even in those crazy-ass days, when, having finished _crime and punishment_ ahead of the class, i loved it so much that i went and got _the brothers karamazov_ and finished reading *that* before the class got through C&P, i was so uninspired by AS that i couldn't even finish it. and i had to write a book report on it. ick ick ick ick. And i was a neo-capitalist in those days. i read _the wealth of nations_ and ludwig von mises' _human action_ for fun. i was ripe for rand, which was one of the reasons i think i picked it for that book report, and i'm telling you, her fiction is crap.
There are probably a couple of Rand fans out there on this list, and I'm sorry to be so judgmental about this one, but to this day, I get students who jabber on about _the fountainhead_ and I want to ask them when they're going to read a real book.
j