Anyone read "Atlas Shrugged" what did you think?

Answer 1

Atlas Shrugged is the best book ever written.
I read it once a year, and have for more than 30 years. It's a brilliant study of Objectivism.
My other 'once a year read' by Ayn Rand is Anthem.
I highly recommend her books if you're not familiar with her philosophy. You won't be the same after you're done with them.

Answer 2

Atlas shrugged is a poorly written pathetic piece of sensationalism.Perhaps it was meant to be, to appeal to the masses. The charectars are wooden, and inflexible and the plot is a Frankenstein hodge podge thrown together in support of some very narrow minded thinking.
Anthem, I actually enjoyed. I think she should have left it at that.
If you are into Freethinkers, Laissez-Faire Economics and the like, I would recommend reading Robert Heinlein. He has some very interesting perspective on these matters...

Answer 3

made me want to kill myself.

read Matt Ruff's "Sewer, Gas and Electric"
it's a different take on the whole thing, but with robots, a mutant shark, and the ghost of Ayn Rand in a bottle.

also, in the book, someone gets killed by being repeatedly struck on the head with a copy of Atlas Shrugged.

(on a serious note, rand writes in hyperbole about a lot of stuff, to an almost unrealistic degree. maybe it was the traumatic childhood, but whenever anyone writes like that it's dangerous. not to mention proselytizing and not a little boring)

Answer 4

I gave it about 80 pages and had enough.
If you think a railway company is a paradigm of successful American capitalism, you have a serious reality problem - true also in the 1950s, I think!