Eli Bendersky's website Having devoured Rand's novels, it's time to move on to her non-fiction materials. Rand released a few "philosophical" works, each focusing on a different aspect of Objectivism. "The virtue of selfishness" is a collection of her articles (with a few contributed by Nataniel Branden), mainly from the 1960s, giving a nice overview of her philosophy, with emphasis on the human self and human rights.
I'm aware that there is a lot of opposition to Ayn Rand in some circles, and even here in use.perl I felt it, receiving a lot of critique on my review of Atlas Shrugged. But what can I say, people, each one has something that "speaks to him", I guess. This is mine. When I read this book I felt "right", that the ideas are good and sound and fit in well with my life philosophy and my general outlook on this world we live in. I do not take everything she says for granted, and I disagree with some points. But overall, it can be certainly said that my philosophy is highly correlated with Objectivism.
So this book is recommended for both proponents and opponents of Ayn Rand. The former will enjoy a good summary of Objectivisim on the topic of "the man as an end in itself". The latter will, at the very least, enjoy Rand's writing - full of flair, determination and sometimes outright virtuosity. I wish I could command a language like that to express my ideas.
I was a bit indimidated by reading a philosophy book at first, since they're usually quite heavy. So I was pleasantly surprised to find out that this book isn't dense at all, and is in fact quite readable (though you should read it with your head fully clear, not late at night after 12 hours of work, or the ideas won't sink in). So I will definitely give a try to a couple of Rand's other non-fiction works.