October 10 marks the 55th anniversary of the publication of Atlas Shrugged, the Ayn Rand masterpiece that sold more than 445,000 copies last year alone. Rand continues to be a pervasive figure in American culture, as politicos and business leaders regularly cite her works and opening weekend approaches for the second installment of the motion picture series based on the novel.
You can read the article here:Millions of individuals have read Rand’s novels, and she has inspired and shaped many people’s thinking,” said Brook. “What’s unique about what’s happening today is that her ideas, and especially herself explicitly, are entering the mainstream debates.”
Ayn Rand’s ideas of limited government and free markets, and her philosophy—particularly her moral philosophy—are what more and more Americans across the political spectrum are looking at more closely,” Brook said.
In addition to Atlas Shrugged, Rand also wrote The Fountainhead, Anthem, and We the Living. ARI’s high school essay contests, which are based on the novels, received more entries this year than ever before, and ARI has distributed more than 2.5 million copies of Rand’s novels to high schools around the country through its Books to Teachers program.
“It is encouraging to see more people talking about Ayn Rand and her ideas,” Brook said. “Even Paul Ryan, who doesn’t agree with all of her ideas, is certainly correct when he says that ‘Ayn Rand, more than anyone else, did a fantastic job of explaining the morality of capitalism, the morality of individualism.’”
http://www.aynrand.org/site/News2?page= ... e&id=27556
Oh and another article:
from here:New reports from Ayn Rand’s publisher indicates that sales figures for “Atlas Shrugged” are continuing a remarkable trend.
In 2011 all English editions of “Atlas Shrugged” sold 445,000 copies.
“This is incredible,” says Dr. Yaron Brook, executive director of the Ayn Rand Institute. “Since Obama was elected, ‘Atlas Shrugged’ has sold more than 1.5 million copies. This is unheard of in the publishing industry, for a 55-year-old novel to register sales of this magnitude. And what’s even more remarkable is that this is even more than the book sold in 1957 . . . when it was a best seller!”
http://www.aynrand.org/site/News2?page= ... e&id=27184