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The Ayn Rand Lexicon could be a great reference app. Especially if it had an intelligent search that would find synonyms and related words.

For music, I like Pandora though their rating system is based off the interesting "Music Genome Project", not other users. I have found it to be better then Spotify Radio in finding new music. And for movies and TV, Netflix has made some alright suggestions.

Some websites do filter the comments.

" I believe in life before death"

Ya but Rearden's response is good - "I'm staking my business on it." However, I do think there will be lots of details that are wrong just because it doesn't seem most people examine the book or the philosophy in much detail. I hope just for some good concrete instances that make the book's ideas more real to me.

The most positive reference that I have seen was in the second episode of the first season of One Tree Hill. The main character says the entire ..."do not let your fire go out"... quote and is given a copy of Atlas Shrugged by a friend.

I really enjoyed reading this book. I didn't think that it was completely consistent but nevertheless, I was inspired by it. The main concepts is how to become a master at something. He identifies some things that I found really helpful but at the same time I found a few things I ignored. One part that helped was Leonard identified different types of people approaching the subject of mastery. He labeled them as the 'dabbler', the 'obsessive,' and the 'hacker' which I thought was pretty accurate. George Leonard himself became excellent at Aikido which is a type of martial arts, but in his book he is good at applying his advice to all areas of life. To quote: " The way we walk, talk to our children, and make love bears a significant relationship to the way we ski, study for a profession, or do our jobs." Leonard emphasizes enjoying the practice time and criticizes quick fixes for quick results. However, I have always tried to be result oriented and he criticizes it because he sees it leading to quick fixes and frustration. I can see were he is coming from but I still don't completely agree. I did find some chapter as boring or against some of my beliefs but there are some that I go back and read again and again. I would definitely recommend at least checking this book out.

Psycho-Epistemology 1 By Harry Binswanger I have been using and thinking about the things taught in this course. I now have a better understanding about the way my conscious mind interacts with the subconscious. It has given me a better idea of the importance of using essentials, how to prepare ones subconscious for certain tasks, and getting information from your subconscious. As you can see I think this is a very applicable lecture. Dr. Binswanger goes over such things as the importance of method since it leads to good or bad content, how to get good feedback from the subconscious, about some of the questions one asks when getting information and receiving it from the subconscious, and other things that I found interesting. This lecture helped me better understand the workings of my mind, which made it well worth the value for me. I found most of it interesting or useful and would recommend it.

For anyone with the sony e-book reader, Ayn Rand's fiction is available through Sony's bookstore.

I've always been curious about how thoroughly the history of philosophy was researched by Ayn Rand. Good review. As for those who don't like the price, reselling it after you listened to it might work.

Reduction: The Tie to Reality by Gary Hull lectures on one of the key aspects of objectivity. I had a pretty good understanding of it from OPAR but the lecture helped with some of the concepts. In the lecture Gary Hull mentioned that a surprising amount of people he talked to did not understand it correctly. Many people equated reduction with concretizing or essentializing which is not the same as reduction. Objectivism: The Philosophy of Ayn Rand by Leonard Peikoff has a very good section on it and that what I'd recommend primarily studying. I'm not sure if this lecture is a good starting point. Some of the examples were unfinished and not clear to me. For instance Gary Hull began reducing a higher level conclusion by tracing it back down to reality through its premises. The problem I had was the example he gave didn't make much sense to me and was not traced all the way back to reality. He just said that one would have to finish retracing it to validate the conclusion, but I think it would have been more helpful if he would have done so himself. On the other hand, I did get something from this example. This process was mentioned in OPAR but this lecture helped me realize that the process of reduction is applied to conclusions much like concepts. Truthfully, the parts of the lecture that seemed to help me the most closely resembled passages in OPAR. Alternating back in forth between the lecture and OPAR helped me understand some of it better. Overall the lecture helped me realize the need to reduce not only concepts but conclusions. It was also helpful in showing some of the problems that reduction solves. The main problem I had with it was a lack of real clear examples such as Leonard Peikoff's reduction of "friends" in OPAR. As a note, there are some experienced Objectivist who have complained about the clarity of this lecture. I have been studying Ayn Rand's nonfiction for about 1 year so I haven't had much experiences with different lectures. It sounds like there are better sources to learn about reduction though. I know one good source is OPAR.

Your notes on "The Art of Thinking" led me to purchase it. Thank you. As I listen to some of the lectures I purchase, I will try to find time to review. I like getting what I want by reading reviews and promoting what I like by writing them. I like the idea of having a review section such as the ones for movies and books. I really like what the originator of this thread suggested; that there should be a system of reviewing on the Ayn Rand Bookstore web site.

I really agree with this. I read reviews about whatever I buy because I want to make sure I am getting what I want. I don't think many people are willing to purchase the more expensive lectures unless they get a pretty good idea of what they are getting. Some lectures I have bought have not been what I expected, so a detailed review would have been very helpful. Also I have found value in some of the lectures that I would like to promote.