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easternbeast

Why We Sleep: Unlocking the Power of Sleep and Dreams by Matthew Walker

All the Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doerr

The Three-Body Problem

Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow by Gabrielle Zevin

Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand

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You are going to catch a lot of downvotes for Atlas Shrugged unless it is added with irony. It is truly a bad book written by a rather horrible person with dubious morals. I strongly recommend anyone who has progressed beyond their angsty sophomore year of college to give it a pass; just go read Anthem to get a feel for Rand's poorly justified bullshit (and to observe a nice example of 'literature' that can do no better than straw man antagonists) and save yourself several hundred pages of reading.

I somehow took a completely different perspective on objectivism away from this book than most people seem to have, so I’m glad I read it instead of skipping it because of its reputation. It convinced me to start a scholarship at my small town high school.

Atlas shrugged is the kind of book, when read early in life could sweep you under the feet in an influential way and when you revisit it later in life, you know all the bullshit selfish philosophy it contains. When I was dating, one checklist I had was to ask the person's opinion on Atlas Shrugged and hoped it was negative. The story always has dysfuncional family, which is far from reality. The selfishness depicted in Ayn Rand books are just not real.

> Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand

I'd recommend leaving that one in the bathroom in case you run out of toilet paper.

I wish this book wasn't as massive as it is. I'd like to read to see why it's so polarizing, I'm just not that interested lol

It's actually not that long if you skip over the monologues.

It's so polarising because it creates poorly defined ideologues that don't exist in reality. It's a giant straw man. And what is left is held together with bits of sticky tape and string. It's just bad.

In Rand's world, Musk (on a bad day) would be your god, your boss and your parent figure. I can see how it'd go down well with the rabid "I am the centre of the universe and all shall yield" types that seem to fall out of the American academic system into servitude friendly startups that are promoted on here like they are a good thing.

Like I said, toilet paper. Put it next to Mein Kampf and Ready Player Two. Both are as morally and literarily offensive in the same way.

I remember my literature teacher describing it as a romantic fantasy and that helped quite a bit.

It’s not meant to be realistic as it’s Rand’s belief system. It’s like complaining that Plato’s Cave isn’t realistic or something.

It’s nowhere near Mein Kampf and it’s a bit offensive to equate this with Hitler (or Ready Player Two).

It’s funny because people pooping on Ayn Rand is such a cliche. I know it’s not a perfect signal but I’ve never encountered a smart person knee-jerk reacting to any mention of Rand.

Also, this is poor advice as this book is so big and the paper so thin it is absolutely horrible as toilet paper.

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