# Barbara Branden on the 50th Anniversary of Atlas Shrugged **URL:** **By** Barbara Branden **Published:** October 6, 2007 --- Barbara Branden is a writer and lecturer. She is known for her personal friendship (and subsequent break) with Ayn Rand, and is the author of _The Passion of Ayn Rand_ (1986). In this video, Branden speaks at the Cato Institute in 2007 as part of the celebrations surrounding the 50th anniversary of the release of _Atlas Shrugged_. She recounts Ayn Rand's reaction the first time Rand saw the book for sale in a New York bookstore in 1957.