Book Review Review

OK, not really. But, Anne C. Heller’s review of Ayn Rand and the World She Made has me reaching for Ye Olde Trustye Amex already. Read:

“She was often at the center of a powerful male throng, taking on all comers, and she left an indelible and largely favorable impression,” Heller writes. ” ‘Tell me your premises,’ she would say on greeting new acquaintances, and having placed her serve would launch a volley of ideas. Contemporaries, including Buckley, remembered her as ‘singular.’ Recalling the first time he met her, he mimicked her Russian accent as she declared, ‘Mr. Buckley, you arrrr too intelligent to believe in Gott!’”

O’Connor–by all accounts a kind, good-natured gentleman who preferred gardening, shopping and painting to conversations about capitalism–couldn’t quite provide that dominance. John Galt did. Ultimately, only her fictional idealized man didn’t crumble under Rand’s staggering moral expectations, manipulative personality or scathing intelligence. (Followers were told “to judge, and be ready to be judged.”)

As someone who read (maybe too much) Rand in high school and college, this is a must-read. But the question remains: Order the hardcover and let it take up space on the nightstand for weeks, or order the Kindle or iBooks version of it and carry it around on the iPad in a few weeks?

Decisions, decisions.