Ayn Rand

“Rand . . . appears, in Popoff’s account, as a direct ancestor of our own era’s massively online authors: a relentless polemicist and talented propagandist who knew how to stay on message, and who was intolerant of nuance in her characters and in her life; nakedly ambitious, often confusing friendship with uncritical adulation and unqualified support; hyperaggressive but also easily wounded by the slightest criticism.”—Marco Roth, Washington Post “A rare glimpse into the Jewishness of Ayn Rand, the U.S. right’s favorite novelist.”—Haaretz “Charmingly anecdotal and revealing. . . . [Popoff] takes us deep into the life and work of this strange woman.”—Deirdre Nansen McCloskey, Literary Review “The reader does emerge with a better sense of the person behind Rand’s influential and popular books.”—MoneyWeek “This account of a writer who was both revered and reviled in her lifetime is absorbing. . . . [Popoff] rises to the challenge of portraying a figure like Rand.”—Svetlana Shnitman-McMillin, Slavonic & East European Review ​ “A compelling portrait of a woman driven to succeed and impress the world with her creative energy and ideas.”—Joshua Rubenstein, author of Leon Trotsky: A Revolutionary’s Life