The World is Flat and Bowling Alone are great picks as well. Beyond that I differ, going off into the realm of Frank Herbert’s “God Emperor of Dune”, and Orson Scott Card’s “Speaker for the Dead”, and definitely Heinlein’s “For Us, the Living”. The ideas in these books did for me what Atlas Shrugged does for capitalistism enthusiasts, echo preexisting ideas in a concrete literate way. They provided quotes and verbiage for the things I had trouble explaining myself. Isn’t that what books do best?

I think A Random Walk Down Wall Street might be where I learned about the distinction between market value and intrinsic value and a castle in the sky vs. sand. Either that or it’s where I learned that monkey throwing darts would do better than my thoughtful analysis. I think it’s how my accountant convinced me I”m better off indexing than trying to play any Reindeer games.

One of my favorite books that surprised me was my Uncle’s Ireland. It’s a story of a boy learning to be a storyteller and you get a rich history of Ireland through a storyteller’s tales along the way.

I’ve heard that Cialdini has some great books, I’ll have to check him out, as well as the other two. I read sections of “Old Man and the Sea,” for class, but never the whole thing.

@ Justin,

Which would you have added? Which two did I pick that were your favorites?

@ John at Hella Sound,

Friedman is the man, I really enjoy his books. Still need to get “Hot, Flat and Crowded,” although I haven’t heard any reviews.

I have “Pillars of the Earth” on my Amazon wishlist, so hopefully I’ll get it soon.

Friedman’s awesome, isn’t he? I’ll read anything he writes. I’ve been putting off reading Rand books since college, but I think maybe it’s time.

I recently got hopelessly sucked into Ken Follett’s Pillars of the Earth and World Without End. Fat books both, but completely engrossing. Have you read them (yet)?

And, this is an interesting one to bring up here, given your background, but the classic anti-war novel, Johnny Got His Gun by Dalton Trumbo had a powerful effect on me, when I was younger.

Also, The Old Man and the Sea by Hemingway was rich in understanding the power of the experience and commitment.

You’ve hit the nail on the head. It’s very rare for me to love a book which promotes a philosophy I don’t necessarily agree with. After much discussion and thought over the years I have come to look at Atlas Shrugged as a book where there are some great principles to be gleaned – not all, but definitely a great many.

I try to separate some of the points on capitalism and those on objectivism, as I don’t think they are mutually exclusive.

I love your description of objectivism being “godless capitalism.” I would also call it the philosophy of self-interest. Either way, it’s not a philosophy I agree with, but that discussion would take up far too many lines of text.