2025 & 2026 Reading Challenge discussion

This thread is to discuss Ayn Rand‘s book, Atlas Shrugged.


***Please remember to mark spoilers.***

Participants: Abhinav, Julia, Alexxy, Kavitha

Suggested break down of reading so that you can check in and let us know how you're doing. The following breakdown is purely a suggestion and is therefore not set in stone.

Rather than putting dates for each section I've done it so that it takes into account that not everybody will necessarily have the book at the same time.

Week 1: 146
Week 2: 146
Week 3: 146
Week 4: 146
Week 5: 146
Week 6: 146
Week 7: 146
Week 8: 146

Let me know (now or towards the end of the month) if you decide you want to make this a two or three month buddy read. It is a long book and it is a short month!

Yes indeed it is a very long book. I should be ok with your suggested pages per week but I also could finish other books too if we can take two months to finish. Let’s hear from the other participant and then decide.

I would also like to participate, but one month wouldn't be enough for me. If everyone agrees on two months, then I would also like to join.

I don't mind to make it 2 months.

Great. Let’s make it 2 months then. Agreed everyone?

Alexxy wrote: "I would also like to participate, but one month wouldn't be enough for me. If everyone agrees on two months, then I would also like to join."

I have added you to the list of participants!

I have adjusted the suggested page breakdown to reflect the change to a two month read!

I would also like to participate.

Read this book many, many years ago and I wanted to read again for a while. I saw this buddy group...

More the merrier!

I’m starting to read it tonight. Busy as hell this whole fortnight. Hopefully I’ll catch up by the end of the month. How are you all doing?

I completed 13% I wondered how I finished this big book some 20 years ago. Now I realize how :) It is fast moving and the characters are gripping especially Dagny, Francisco and Hank. All I remember from my past reading is how ambitious and unpretentious Dagny was! Hank's inner dialogues and the ideologies of his family members are thought provoking. I am finding it contradictory because of how we are brought to think and agreeing with Hank. Ah! being torn apart with contradictions.

Kavitha wrote: "I would also like to participate.

Read this book many, many years ago and I wanted to read again for a while. I saw this buddy group..."

I have added you to the list!

Kavitha wrote: "I completed 13% I wondered how I finished this big book some 20 years ago. Now I realize how :) It is fast moving and the characters are gripping especially Dagny, Francisco and Hank. All I remembe..."

Hmm, I don't know, I'm about 20% done and I find it extremely boring. TBH, I did kind of expect it to be a hard read, but while listening to the audiobook, twice I fell asleep and woke up after half an hour to find out I've missed nothing.

Although, things do seem to be getting more interesting now that I am getting to the second part of the story. I guess I shall wait and see.

P.S. I agree with you about Hank and his family. It was very interesting reading about their interactions. (view spoiler)[Especially, the part when her mother is asking him to employ his brother. I kept thinking about what I would have done if I were in his place. (hide spoiler)]

I read this book as a part of the Complete Works Challenge in 2015. I got so tired of the chapter long speeches! I just wanted to yell "I get it! I get it! I wish she had simply let her characters tell the story as I actually liked them and the storyline but this book definitely could have been three quarters shorter and more effective!

I found both Atlas Shrugged and the Fountainhead difficult to read and, truthfully, boring. I think she is a good writer but these two books were more about her philosophy than writing good fiction! Rand was on a soapbox too often! Too much telling and not enough showing. Interestingly, I enjoyed her other, earlier work. Anthem was shorter and more effective in making her points. (It also had more of a sci-fi feel to it which I enjoyed.) And We The Living - which she said was the closest she would ever get to an autobiography - really helped me to understand what she grew up with and why she felt so strongly about individualism. But it was some of her earlier, shorter works that I found most enjoyable. They were lighter in tone and length but very well written. I especially enjoyed The Husband I Bought. I thought it was a beautiful, sad, intricate love story. If you have not read her earlier works, I recommend them!

Finished, at last, reading Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand.

All hail the queen, Ayn Rand! Believe me, when I say that this book took me 90 days of my life to complete. I actually scheduled my reading timings for Atlas Shrugged just so that I could spend more time reading it. If only there were few more pages to read!

I'm glad this book is finally over. I even wondered many a number of times thinking about when would I be able to finish it and move onto the next book. Now I regret it. That's what Ayn Rand does to you if you are a tiny bit of an egoist that you should be.
A living proof that philosophy too could be taught in a commercial way.