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.
We the Living [audiobook]
We the Living [audiobook]
One of Modern Library's 100 Best English-Language Novels of the Twentieth Centuryfor the Reader's List
We the Living portrays the impact of the Russian Revolution on three people who demand the right to live their own lives. At its center is a girl whose passionate love is her fortress against the cruelty and oppression of a totalitarian state.
Of this book, Ayn Rand said, “it is as near to an autobiography as I will ever write. The plot is invented, the background is not. I was born in Russia, I was educated under the Soviets; I have seen the conditions of existence that I describe. The specific events of Kira’s life were not mine; her ideas, her convictions, her values were and are."
We the Living is not a story of politics, but of the men and women who have to struggle for existence behind the Red banners and slogans. It is a picture of what dictatorship-of any kind-does to human beings. What happens to the defiant ones? What happens to those who succumb? Who are the winners in this conflict? For those who found Ayn Rand’s blockbuster Atlas Shrugged a powerful voice raised in defense of the individual, this book continues the theme of an individual’s right to the pursuit of his or her own happiness.
Editorial Reviews
“A really excellent piece of work.” —H. L. Mencken
“A colossal love story with a massive philosophical framework.” —Miami News