As I’ve mentioned, Front Range Objectivism has embarked on a new project this fall: Atlas Shrugged Reading Groups (ASRGs). Here’s the basic description:

In these [groups], members read and discuss Ayn Rand’s gripping and controversial novel over the course of twenty weekly meetings. Each meeting lasts ninety minutes; it covers about sixty pages of the novel. Discussion is guided by questions prepared by Diana Hsieh and given to members in advance. FRO’s Atlas Shrugged Reading Groups are open to any fan of the novel interested in discussing the characters, events, and ideas of the novel in greater depth.

The official FRO ASRGs started last Thursday, October 1st, in Longmont and Colorado Springs. The Auraria Campus Objectivists also started an ASRG in mid-September.

I’m pleased to report that the first meetings of the Longmont and Colorado Springs Atlas Shrugged Reading Groups went very well. (Unfortunately, our chosen location in Colorado Springs was too noisy. We’ve found a suitable Borders for future meetings, however.)

Sixteen people attended the first meeting of the Colorado Springs ASRG. (We have 28 people on that mailing list.) Twenty-three people attended the first meeting of the Longmont ASRG. (We have 34 people on that mailing list.) Most of these people are entirely unknown to us; we found them via advertising and promotion — particularly Facebook advertising — not from our own FRO mailing list. Notably, Front Range Objectivism’s main “FROST” e-mail list has 371 people on it, yet we found almost 50 new people! That’s remarkable, I think.

Many of the people attending these groups seem to have a fairly good grasp of Ayn Rand’s politics, but not of her underlying ethics, epistemology, and ethics. So I’m looking forward to exploring those deeper themes in the novel over the course of these twenty sessions.

I’d really love to see Objectivists and other fans of Ayn Rand create Atlas Shrugged Reading Groups in their own cities and towns. To that end, I’m rather busy developing resources for anyone interested in doing that. I’ve posted the twenty-session schedule, and I plan to write up a “getting started guide” with my suggestions. In addition, week by week, I’m going to post the discussion questions for and a podcast on each session. In fact, you can find the first installment here: Explore Atlas Shrugged: Session 1.

I’m collecting all those resources on a new web site: Explore Atlas Shrugged. (Right now, I’m using a blog simply to save myself some time.) If you’re interested in creating your own Atlas Shrugged Reading Group, I think the web site will be very helpful. Moreover, anyone interested in simply reading (or re-reading) Atlas Shrugged in some depth will likely find the discussion questions and podcasts of interest. (I have a much larger bank of questions than what I’m posting. I hope to edit and post the whole lot.)

Of course, I’ll be posting those discussion questions and podcasts each week on NoodleFood too. (I’ve not posted them yet only because I wanted to post this introduction first. They will be posted later today, however.) So now might be an excellent time to re-read Atlas Shrugged with us!

Overall, I’m super-excited about what we’re doing in Colorado with these Atlas Shrugged Reading Groups. We’re breaking new ground — and so far, the results look very promising.