by Jason Stotts
The Ayn Rand Institute announced yesterday that sales of Atlas Shrugged have tripled over last year, which was itself a record year for sales. Perhaps we should thank Comrade Obama for this?
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Atlas Shrugged Triples in Sales
Irvine, CA, May 12, 2009–Reports from trade sources indicate that consumer purchases of Ayn Rand’s Atlas Shrugged have tripled in the first four months of 2009 compared to the first four months of 2008.
According to Dr. Yaron Brook, executive director of the Ayn Rand Institute, “The tripling in sales ofAtlas Shrugged is remarkable, especially considering that in 2008 a new all-time record in annual sales of the novel was established with more than 200,000 copies sold in the United States.”
As Dr. Brook pointed out, “Annual sales of Atlas Shrugged have been increasing for decades to a level not seen in Ayn Rand’s lifetime. Sales of the U.S. paperback editions averaged 74,000 copies a year in the 1980s, 95,000 copies a year in the 1990s and 139,000 copies a year in the current decade. After reaching an all-time high during the novel’s 50th anniversary in 2007, another new high was reached in 2008 and an even higher mark is expected for 2009.”
More than 6,500,000 copies of Atlas Shrugged have been sold to date.
“As America faces a devastating economic crisis fundamentally caused by government policies, it is a hopeful sign for the future that increasing numbers of concerned Americans are turning to Atlas Shrugged and discovering Ayn Rand’s original morality of rational egoism and her uncompromising defense of laissez faire capitalism.”