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AudibleInk - Atlas Shrugged
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List Price: $23.00
Our Price: $15.64
Your Save: $ 7.36 ( 32% )
Availability: Usually ships in 24 hours
Manufacturer: Plume
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FREE SHIPPING on Orders over $25!
Average Customer Rating:  
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Binding: Paperback
Dewey Decimal Number: 813.52
EAN: 9780452011878
ISBN: 0452011876
Label: Plume
Manufacturer: Plume
Number Of Items: 1
Number Of Pages: 1200
Publication Date: 1999-08-01
Publisher: Plume
Studio: Plume
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Editorial Reviews:
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At last, Ayn Rand's masterpiece is available to her millions of loyal readers in trade paperback.
With this acclaimed work and its immortal query, "Who is John Galt?", Ayn Rand found the perfect artistic form to express her vision of existence. Atlas Shrugged made Rand not only one of the most popular novelists of the century, but one of its most influential thinkers.
Atlas Shrugged is the astounding story of a man who said that he would stop the motor of the world--and did. Tremendous in scope, breathtaking in its suspense, Atlas Shrugged stretches the boundaries further than any book you have ever read. It is a mystery, not about the murder of a man's body, but about the murder--and rebirth--of man's spirit.
* Atlas Shrugged is the "second most influential book for Americans today" after the Bible, according to a joint survey conducted by the Library of Congress and the Book of the Month Club
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Spotlight customer reviews:
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Customer Rating:
Summary: Amazing book
Comment: Easily the best book I've ever read. Don't let the length scare you off, it's well worth it.
Customer Rating:
Summary: South Park Inspired Me to Read Atlas Shrugged!
Comment: An episode of South Park inspired me to read Atlas Shrugged. In the episode in which Officer Barbrady finally learned how to read (The Chicken Plucker, I believe) he ended the show on a note that the book he had chosen to read (Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand) was "garbage" and not worth the read. I had actually never heard of Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand until I saw that episode. So, naturally, I decided I must find it and read it. Then I forgot all about it until I spied a like-new hard backed copy at the local library on the For Sale table for $1.00!! I bought it and started to regret the challenge when I looked at the tiny print and the 1168 pages. I sat it aside for a few weeks, thinking, "yeah, right, I'm going to read that". But, the challenge niggled at me and I began to read - and read - and read.
I understand that Ayn Rand's uptopia is peopled by those with a pragmatic objectivism philosophy, which some reviews consider to be selfishness. I didn't get the selfishness part as such. I interpreted her objective in writing this book as being AGAINST Socialism. I felt this was demonstrated by the entire society's falling apart by all those that had made it having to give all they had to all those that hadn't made it. As the thinkers and doers lost more and more of their livlihood to those contributing nothing at all and taking all that they could - these people formed a new society on the premise that you should do no work you do not love and you take absolutely nothing without paying for it in some way. Therefore, everyone contributes to their society and that society becomes strong. The original society was coming apart at the seams and eventually totally collapsed without the giants of industry to do everything for them. Individuals in the original society were not allowed to think, nor did they want to. I did NOT enjoy John Galt's Manifesto (Part 3, Chapter 7 "This is John Galt Speaking", pages 1000 - 1070 in my particular book). After reading the chapter in its entirity, I seriously would recommend skipping about 68 pages of that chapter. It's a drone and you'll get the point in the first 2 or 3 pages of that chapter, anyway!
This book seemed overwhelming in length and breadth, initially. But, I am glad that I read Atlas Shrugged, because it really does make one think. Think about things such as we have been under a President for almost 8 years that doesn't seem to want to think and our country and even the world seems to be in a really sorry shape. I kept thinking, as I was reading the book, that perhaps the current administration had read this book and were trying out for the parts of the political system described within. Heaven Help US!
Customer Rating:
Summary: Good idea, bad delivery.
Comment: Pro: pro-capitalism
CON: way too long and verbose -- it almost seems as if Rand tried to squeeze in as many words as possible
No matter how true or right or great an idea or message is, if one fails to convey it in a succint and memorable manner, it's worthless. In retrospect I would just read the cliff notes for this treatise. Also, just like for the KJV Bible they have made Living and NIV versions in modern day language, the publisher of Atlas Shrugged needs to revamp it into a 21st century version -- they can use Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, and Meg Whitman for the protoganists. (Ok fine someone with more aesthetic appeal than Meg Whitman.)
Customer Rating:
Summary: Great delivery from seller...
Comment: Extremely prompt delivery from seller. As for the book, haven't read this 1200 page beast yet, but am looking forward to the exercise for the mind.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Very, very disappointing.
Comment: Atlas Shrugged came highly recommended, and, as I had been impressed by Rand's earlier The Fountainhead, decided to try this longer book.
If you don't expect any characterization or plot, and don't mind a highly repetitive hammering of a particular philosophical stance, you might find it tolerable. In fact, had the same storyline been told in 150-200 pages, it might not have been as bad-but at 1100+ pages, it was seriously stretched.
ALL the "good guys" are exceptionally competent polymaths, and are uniformly handsome, striking, and healthy. ALL the "bad guys" are seriously incompetent and have substantial physical flaws. Just by the description of a character--often running more than a page--you can tell where they stand.
All the "good guys" speak the same; there is no way to identify who is speaking from their speech patterns, word choice, phrasing, punctuation, or anything else: they're essentially verbal clones of each other, and all of them are promoting the same philosophy.
The same applies to the "bad guys", though they espouse a couple of (minor) variations on their philosophy, and one of them--a fairly minor one--could actually be identified by his speech patterns. The rest, again, were verbal and philosophical clones.
None of the major characters developed in any meaningful way. Some of them learned some facts, but none of them achieved any real growth. In fact, the only people who changed in any substantial fashion were minor characters, and many of them only did so immediately before dying.
One of the characters makes a speech in the later part of the book. That speech, which we were told was highly effective to the listeners, was not well phrased, well organized, nor fashioned in such a way as to keep any audience from falling asleep. That speech alone took 60 pages, with no interruptions or commentary from any other character; I had to take a break partway through, and ended up skimming the last 20-odd pages, as it was highly repetitious, both to itself, and everything else in the novel. The author could more effectively have elided it, and had a few characters talk about it in 2-3 pages; instead, the readers were treated to yet another repetition what had been repeated many times before.
From a philosophical standpoint, if Atlas Shrugged were shorter, from a novella to a very short novel, I could honestly suggest it to someone interested in the viewpoint Rand was pushing. At 1100 pages, I cannot.
It may be the worst novel I've ever bothered to finish; I kept hoping there would be something worthwhile in upcoming pages--a key character flaw the author argued against, in fact: hope based on a lack of acceptance of historical facts. It had no plot, no characterization, no character development or growth, poor dialog, and the most blatant hammering of a philosophical stance I've ever seen, spread out over substantially too many pages.
(For the record, I'm almost entirely in agreement with the position promoted by the protagonists. I don't disapprove of the message, merely the delivery--repeating the same thing a few hundred times doesn't make it any more convincing.)
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