I'm not a libertarian, but your point stands - it wasn't her philosophy that bothered me, it's the book and how poorly it is written. To use an example from th

I'm not a libertarian, but your point stands - it wasn't her philosophy that bothered me, it's the book and how poorly it is written. To use an example from the book I mentioned, The Name of the Rose has long sections where people argue over obscure religious matters (such as whether or not God has a sense of humour). As an atheist, if I reacted to books simply on the basis of my beliefs, I'd hate it, since what's more pointless than reading dialogue about a non-existent entity? But I found it fascinating, because it's well done, well-written, and intellectually rigorous. That said, the quality of her writing did impact my opinion of her philosophy. I was open-minded about Rand and her ideas until I started reading Atlas Shrugged, at which point I decided that if her writing was that poor, I really didn't see how I could embrace her ideas, especially since so many of her supporters seem to think it's a really fine novel.