The Objective Standard Blog

Wednesday, November 4, 2009

‘Atlas Shrugged’ Survey Delivers Surprising Results

Posted by ARI Media at 7:14 pm

A recent Zogby national online survey indicates that 24.8 percent of the 2,232 respondents have read Ayn Rand’s novel “Atlas Shrugged.”

When asked why they chose to read “Atlas Shrugged,” 37.6 percent of respondents in the online survey said it was recommended by a friend or colleague, 18.4 percent had it assigned or recommended in school, 9.9 percent read or heard about it in a print/Internet article or radio/TV program, 8.4 percent saw it in a library, and 1.9 percent noticed it in a bookstore.

The survey also indicated that 19.8 percent of respondents have read Ayn Rand’s “The Fountainhead,” 6.9 percent “Anthem,” 4 percent “We the Living,” and 3 percent “The Virtue of Selfishness.”

In the past two years, national telephone surveys of about 1,100 people have indicated that 8.1 percent of respondents had read “Atlas Shrugged.” The latest online survey was randomly drawn from a pool of several hundred thousand people while the telephone surveys were drawn at random from larger lists of people who own telephones.

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Posted in: Ayn Rand and Objectivism, The Arts