Ayn Rand
Born Alisa Zinovyevna Rosenbaum on January 20 (Russian Old Style), 1905, in St. Petersburg, Russia, later Alice O’Connor (an Americanized married name), Ayn Rand became a disruptive force of nature in literature and philosophy by writing plays, novels, essays, economic and philosophical treatises, and establishing herself as a commentator on the society in the mid-20th Century.
Having cut a larger-than-life figure during her lifetime, Rand and her writings have not faded away since her death in 1982. Aspects of her stated philosophy, as inconsistent or idiosyncratic as it may be, have been adopted and proclaimed by a heterogeneous assembly of groups. Rand herself would have been delighted and appalled by the attention and the creative straying from the ideas in her works. She did not suffer dissent graciously, considering how much she glorified it, but that too is an path of interest for some readers of her books. There is an irony that the founder of the Objectivist movement/school/philosophy seems to generate passions for and against her that are anything but objective or rational.
At any rate, I have sold Ayn Rand steadily and consistently since opening Whistlestop in 1985. I have sold her books to True Believers and to skeptics and to the curious. I provide this page in appreciation of her ability to unsettle readers to this day.
Three Plays: Night of January 16th, Ideal, Think Twice
Three Plays: Night of January 16th, Ideal, Think Twice
Published together for the first time are three of Ayn Rand’s most compelling stage plays. The courtroom drama Night of January 16th, famous for its open-ended verdict, is presented here in its definitive text. Also included are two of Rand’s unproduced plays, Think Twice, a clever philosophical murder mystery, and Ideal, a bitter indictment of people’s willingness to betray their highest values-symbolized by a Hollywood goddess suspected of a crime.