The Fountainhead, by Ayn Rand

About Ayn Rand's The Fountainhead:

The Fountainhead "... is the story of an intransigent young architect, of his violent battle against the world's standards and conventions, and of his explosive love affair with a beautiful woman who loved him passionately, yet struggled to defeat him."

The Fountainhead "... is based on a challenging belief in the importance of selfishness, on the provocative idea that man's ego is the fountainhead of human progress. It is chiefly the story of Howard Roark, Architect -- a man whose sole aim in life was to build, and to build not in the tradition of the past but only in the tradition of Howard Roark."

"Ellsworth Toohey, champion of the downtrodden, was one of the few people who understood Roark and was smart enough to know why he wanted Roark destroyed. Ellsworth Toohey's characterization in The Fountainhead is a beautifully achieved picture of the inherent viciousness in apparently benign humanitarianism."

"Dominique Franchon understood Roark and loved him, but she too tried once to destroy him."

"These are [some of] the important characters of a truly great book. Ayn Rand has written a dramatic, action-filled book of tremendous scope against a fascinating background of a profession heretofore little described in fiction."

"Brilliantly written and daringly original, here is a novel about a hero -- and about those who tried to destroy him."

The Fountainhead Table of Contents:

Peter Keating

Ellsworth M. Toohey

Gail Wynand

Howard Roark

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The Fountainhead by Ayn Rand (hardcover)
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For the New Intellectual - The Philosophy of Ayn Rand, by Ayn Rand

About Ayn Rand's For the New Intellectual:

"Who are to be the New Intellectuals?"
"Any man or woman who is willing to think. All those who know that man's life must be guided by reason, those who value their own life and are not willing to surrender it to the cult of despair in the modern jungle of cynical impotence, just as they are not willing to surrender the world to the Dark Ages and the rule of the brutes."

"In the introductory essay 'For the New Intellectual' -- a tour de force of psychological-philosophical interpretation -- Ayn Rand offers an analysis of Western culture, the causes of its progress, its decline, its present crisis, and the road to an intellectual renaissance."

"This book presents the essentials of Ayn Rand's philosophy 'for those who wish to acquire an integrated view of existence'. In the title essay she offers an analysis of Western culture, discusses the causes of its progress, its decline, its present bankruptcy, and points the road to an intellectual renaissance."

"What is the essence of her philosophy? That man's mind is fully competent to perceive reality -- that reason is man's exclusive tool of knowledge and his only guide to action -- that man is an end to himself, not a means to the ends of others, and that rational self-interest is the moral purpose of his life -- that justice, not self-sacrifice, is the proper principle of social relationships -- that 'a free mind and a free market are corollaries,' and their politico-economic expression is laissez-faire capitalism."

For the New Intellectual Table of Contents:

Preface

For the New Intellectual

We the Living

Anthem

The Fountainhead
The Nature of the Second-Hander
The Soul of a Collectivist
The Soul of an Individualist

Atlas Shrugged
The Meaning of Money
The Martyrdom of the Industrialist
The Moral Meaning of Capitalism
The Meaning of Sex
"From Each According to His Ability, to Each According to His Need"
The Forgotten Man of Socialized Medicine
The Nature of an Artist
"This is John Galt Speaking"

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For the New Intellectual is available at Amazon:
For the New Intellectual - The Philosophy of Ayn Rand (paperback)
For the New Intellectual - The Philosophy of Ayn Rand (hardcover)
For the New Intellectual - The Philosophy of Ayn Rand (hardcover)
For the New Intellectual - The Philosophy of Ayn Rand (hardcover)

Atlas Shrugged, by Ayn Rand

Atlas Shrugged, by Ayn Rand, is a must read. Forget the blather of the left and the right and religious wackos. This novel is an in-your-face analysis of what's going on -- why this economy and political system is collapsing.

It was science fiction in the 1950s. It's reality today.

For other hard-hitting in-your-face unconventional wisdom books, see libertarian objectivist book list