#1 - Read one book for each month of the project OUTSIDE of school books - November 2010

For this month, I chose another novella because I knew my time and willpower for leisurely reading would be short - but this time, I wish the reading was longer. I read Anthem by Ayn Rand, one of the great literary and social thinkers of the last century. (I borrowed it from Tommy's house in Texas...I'll send it back!)

The sleeping halls there were white and clean
and bare of all things save one hundred beds.

Originally published in 1938, this book came before George Orwell's 1984  and on the tail of Brave New World, but tells of the same dystopia that the authors fear humankind would let themselves slip into when power gets into the hands of few and takes individuality (or, in this book, "ego") from them. It's written as a sort of diary, from the hands of 21 year old Equality 7-2521, who refers to himself as "we", who feels like he has sinned against his collective brotherhood by allowing himself to have individual thoughts and preferences. It's a really interesting perspective, though it's a really big dramatization, but what Rand brought up in all of her works, especially Anthem, is true today. I really recommend it...makes you value your rights as an individual to think for yourself, act for yourself, and choose who you want to become. Giving it up, to anyone is to relinquish the fundamental essence of being a human. Like Rand says, a collective body cannot reason - only the individual can.

I am neither foe nor friend to my brothers, but such as each of them shall deserve of me. And to earn my love, my brothers must do more than to have been born. I do not grant my love without reason, nor to any chance passer-by who may wish to claim it. I honor men with my love. But honor is a thing to be earned.