retroactively does not care for Ayn Rand.

anyone with a heart could be so uncaring about other people. I was already a bleeding heart liberal.

My favorite bit comes very early, where Rand attempts to prove that altruism is evil. Her argument goes like this (give or take about 5,000 words of padding):

Altruism is obviously evil. Therefore, altruism is evil.

She then does another logical pirouette, and claims that it naturally follows that greed and self-interest are good. And that's all in the first chapter or preface, IIRC.

There's a reason her "philosophy" had to be packaged in fiction. It would've been torn to pieces if she'd tries to publish that incoherent nonsense as philosophy.

I am a progressive liberal.

The first one was Atlas Shrugged and I read her other novels too.. I could not get past the selfishness. It didn't seem right.

The Lord of the Rings I found inspiring and entertaining....My kids loved it too.

The Fountainhead as a junior. There used to be a big essay contest on the works of Ayn Rand and big scholarships were available for winning essays.

So boring. I was then (and am still now) an avid reader and I found myself not giving a gosh darn about who was John Galt. I couldn't muster the tiniest bit of interest in writing the essay. I chose instead to write an essay about corn husking for a different scholarship. The history of corn husking held my interest more than objectivism.

between my Freshmen and Junior years. Yes. It took three years to get through it. I kept getting bored and going on to something else and then when I came back to it, felt like I had to begin from the beginning again.

Someone recommended it to me because I wanted to be an architect and all I got out of it was "If these are the kind of people I'm going to have to work with, forget it!"

I had writer's block after reading it. It was mindnumbingly boring.

When corn husking offers more interest than The Fountainhead, you know there's something wrong.

I've had this swimming in my head all morning...

I am Andrew Ryan, and I'm here to ask you a question. Is a man not entitled to the sweat of his brow? 'No!' says the man in Washington, 'It belongs to the poor.' 'No!' says the man in the Vatican, 'It belongs to God.' 'No!' says the man in Moscow, 'It belongs to everyone.' I rejected those answers; instead, I chose something different. I chose the impossible.

I had to get them at the library, and when I finished the first and went back for the second it was checked out...I nearly went insane for the 5 days I had to wait to rent it. And my mom was really worried about me, she called the doc and asked him if my behavior was normal since I didn't want to go out and play with friends, just sit and read.

Very funny!!

It was a great story, and the fact that she actually called the doc was the detail that made it especially funny.

I wasn't trying to be snarky at all. You captured the adolescent fervor perfectly!

It's weird; after I posted that I sat here and thought about it...almost as if it just happened the other day. I drove my mom nuts, she isn't a reader so didn't understand!

or THE HARDY BOYS

...going to be such a blockbuster hit that they split it into three parts like people would be hanging on the edge of their seats breathlessly waiting for the next part like they did with the "Lord of the Rings" trilogy.

To add an extra dose of hilarity, they released it on April 15th, "tax day".

Part one cost 10 million to make and made 1.7 million on it's opening weekend and fell off from there running only 35 days. To the maker's surprise, it actually costs money to play a movie in a theater and they would lose what little they made back if they extended it's run. Despite this, they say they plan to do part II anyway.

BTW: The cliffhanger is a rich guy saying he quits.

thing just rung false with me...