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The FountainheadBook

by Ayn Rand

Who uses, recommends or left The Fountainhead, in their own words: each a verbatim quote with a link to where it was said.

2 people

Jason Evanish
Founder and CEO of Get Lighthouse, a management-coaching software company; former product lead at KISSmetrics who writes about leadership and product management.
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After having multiple friends recommend it, I decided it was time to read a book by the controversial Ayn Rand. I greatly enjoyed the lengthy story of triumph of the creative individual over the status quo, but I found the rape-driven relationship between main characters distasteful and took away from the story.

His continuously-updated books page, where every book he reads gets a 1-10 rating and a "Why Read it" note; the book links carry his Amazon affiliate tag. The page carries no publication date for individual entries — its own metadata gives article:published_time 2012-12-16 and article:modified_time 2020-10-28, and books were added across that whole span. (undated page)

2020-10-28·jasonevanish.com ↗

Kris Abdelmessih
Former options market maker who writes Moontower, a newsletter about trading, volatility and decision-making.
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Naysayers will have a lot to object about Rand. But Roark embodied integrity. Integrity is more complicated than Rand presents. I don’t think the hardest questions are in here. But Roark is a good guide for many decisions life will throw at you even if he is an incomplete (or possibly just unfinished) hero.

Abdelmessih’s answer to a reader who asked for his favourite books "regarding the grander questions", one paragraph per pick.

2020-02-09·moontowermeta.com ↗

What they also use

Every entry is a verbatim quote and a link to the public post it came from. Nothing is paraphrased. If it is not on record somewhere public, it is not here.

The verdict is what they actually said: loved and liked are explicit; recommended means they told others to get it; uses means they only say they use it; read is a book on their public shelf with no verdict; mixed and disliked are kept too.

A dashed affiliate link, sponsored or their own label means the post disclosed a relationship. It is shown, never hidden.

The shading behind a date shows how dated a recommendation is for its kind of thing.

The shading behind a date shows how dated a recommendation is, for its kind of thing. Fully green is recent. It drains a quarter at a time as the post gets older, and is empty once it reads as dated.

What counts as old depends on the thing. A laptop praised four years ago has been replaced twice; a book loved twenty years ago is probably still loved. The shading is gone after about:

Stripes mean the post carries no date and the date shown is an estimate. No date at all, no shading.