Although Ayn Rand was a prolific author, she never wrote a treatise on Objectivism — her philosophical thinking and cultural commentary are spread out among more than a dozen books.
To celebrate Christmas, we asked Jeff Britting, curator of the Ayn Rand Archives, to supply us with images and text from an article he wrote that originally appeared in the Ayn Rand Institute’s newsletter, Impact, in 2010. The article was devoted to anecdotes about Christmas visits, letters from Ayn Rand’s family in Russia about Christmas, images of Rand and her husband, Frank O’Connor, at Christmas and Christmas cards she and Frank gave and received.
Although Ayn Rand is virtually unknown in France, the release of the French edition of Atlas Shrugged (La Grève) in paperback this March has sparked a burst of interest in Rand in the French media.
In today’s New York Times, author and columnist James B. Stewart quotes Yaron Brook, the Ayn Rand Institute’s executive chairman, at length in an article titled “As a Guru, Ayn Rand May Have Limits. Ask Travis Kalanick.” The article discusses Rand’s influence on a growing number of businessmen and entrepreneurs, including Kalanick, the recently departed chief executive of Uber. Kalanick, the article points out, was a fan who even used cover art from her novel The Fountainhead as his avatar on Twitter.
Learn more about the Academy Award-Nominated 1997 documentary Ayn Rand: A Sense of Life and its director Michael Paxton in this new website, which was launched to commemorate the documentary’s twentieth anniversary. You’ll also find video clips from the film and information about the cast.
In celebration of Christmas, Ayn Rand Archives curator Jeff Britting gathered some Christmas-related memorabilia and objects from the Archives for a special video. “Christmas was a holiday that Ayn Rand loved,” said Britting, “and these objects will give you a taste of what Christmas was like for Ayn Rand and her husband, Frank O’Connor.”
In case you haven’t noticed, the Ayn Rand Institute has a YouTube channel that we are regularly updating with talks, lectures, debates, interviews, Q&As and seminars.
