• • Ken Levine Talks About His New Video Game 
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BioShock  |Atlas Shrugged  |Egoism  | [Ken Levine:] [T]he conflict is ancient: “I have it. You don’t. I want to keep it. And you want it.” Or “I earned it. No, you didn’t.” That conflict is to some degree more salient than the Randian one in Rapture. That’s a moral argument rather than a natural rights argument. There is a good for society in selfishness and I use the term as she used it, as a positive thing.  

• • ‘Books, I Think, Are Dead’: Joe Queenan Talks About ‘One for the Books’ 
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Atlas Shrugged  |The Fountainhead  | Q. You say that “a genuinely terrible book is a sheer delight.” What’s the 
worst book you’ve ever read? (Let’s exclude the most predictably bad,
 like those you cite written by O. J. Simpson and Geraldo Rivera.) A. “Atlas Shrugged” is moronic beyond belief, though it just narrowly edges out “The Fountainhead.” Rand is a fascist and a creep, either of which could be forgiven. But she also cannot write. As Oscar Wilde once said, the only truly unforgivable crime is lack of sophistication. I think Wilde said that. He said everything else.  

• Last-Minute Romantic Book Ideas for That Special Someone 
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Books can be dangerous gifts in all but the most solid of relationships. Who hasn’t had a budding affair — or even a seemingly solid marriage — destroyed by an impetuous declaration of love for Ayn Rand or Clive Cussler?  

• • Won’t get fooled again 
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Atlas Shrugged  | L. Ron Creepweans (his real name – or is it?) cheekily reports [at at LocusOnline.com] that the authors Charles Stross and Cory Doctorow have been given permission by the estate of Ayn Rand to write an official sequel to “Atlas Shrugged.” In the article, Mr. Stross is quoted as saying that though he and Mr. Doctorow were initially wary of the project, “we realized that both of us shared one important trait with Ayn Rand: all three of us really, really like money. That made it much easier for Cory and I to cash the seven figure check.”