An excellent book, emphasizing Rand’s Jewish heritage and the continuing influence on her work, despite her self-proclaimed agnosticism. The author is Alexandra Popoff, who also wrote a wonderful biography of Vassily Grossman.
Here is part of the introduction:
I believe that writers cannot hide from the text of a text, even when they later go back to revise it, as Randi did. He said that being a Jew meant nothing to him, but his Judaism was about the text, which is full of ideas, parables, puzzles, questions and arguments. His fiction is moral and legal at the same time.
Rand was once slated to write a film about Oppenheimer and the making of the atomic bomb, though the project never materialized. Here is an excerpt from the last part of the book:
In his declining years Rand pursued his love of stamp collecting. He attended stamp shows and auctions with other collectors, one of whom was his surgeon Dr. Cranston Holman. He shopped at Gimbels, his favorite store, played Scrabble with guests, read Agatha Christie, watched TV cops and robbers, and in his mid-seventies, learned algebra.
The Burns and Heller biographies of Rand are excellent, but this one has a lot of new material and insight.
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