Equal opportunity Shark Week.

I think I will be re-reading ATLAS SHRUGGED by Ayn Rand. Here's a description:

This book takes place probably around the 1950s. It is centered around the industrial sector of the U.S., the only government that has not become a People's State. Dagny Taggart is a no-nonsense VP of Operations for the largest railroad in the world. She is intelligent and is solely driven to keeping her RR as the best. The times are dim and getting dimmer. In the beginning the country is in a recession of sorts and it is up to Taggart and others like her to save the country. There are two problems that are preventing her from doing this. One, the government seeks more and more control when it should be stepping away. Second, the men of industry are disappearing one by one just when they are critically needed. No one knows where they go off to. The theme of Atlas Shrugged, as Rand described it, is "the role of man's mind in existence". The book explores a number of philosophical themes from which Rand would subsequently develop Objectivism. In doing so, it expresses the advocacy of reason, individualism, capitalism, and the failures of governmental coercion.

Published in 1957, it is 1200 pages.  I first read this a little over twenty years ago when I was the stage manager for a show in Virginia City (MT). My job required me to have the Brewery open for tourists in the afternoons; I was there by myself. It was a cool and rainy early summer and very few people came by. It was an amazing experience -- reading this epic book, listening to classic music on my boombox, in a dimly lit cold 100+ year old building. I was in my early 20s. I am thinking that a lot of it probably didn't mean much to me at the time, philosophically. Now, twenty something years later, as I approach my 50th in a couple years and life experience under my belt, and our world has become entrenched in government control and very similar to this fictional dystopia, I want to re-read this to see how it holds up. It is, as you can see, a "honkin'-huge" book so we'll see if I can keep with it.

Much love,
PK the Bookeemonster