You'll definitely love it if you're fond of Ayn Rand. It's a good follow up to the philosophy of life presented in The Fountainhead. However, if you're just starting on Ayn Rand, I would not recommend to start with this particular book. Start from The Fountainhead, and if you like it, then you'll like this on too.

Should be required reading for all students - although may be tough going for anyone under 20. This is an ode to capitalism like you could never imagine - thank god that Any Rand had the imagination. Atlas Shrugged and Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance have been my top two life-shaping book picks for as long as I can remember. Read them with the eyes of a student and preferably at the same time as a friend or book club - you're going to want to talk about these books. I'm not kidding. There are big ideas here and the likes of which many people don't encounter often - the world will change before your eyes.

I read this book years ago. Every American should read it. Its about what makes America great. Capitalism. I brought the book for a friend.

Al

I'm a big reader--my job requires a lot of reading and my ideal night is to fall asleep with a book and my cat curled up in my lap (she, being too smart to risk getting kicked off the bed when I twitch, prefers to sleep on my chair).

But this book is monumental, not just for its size, but for the ideas that are expressed in it and how well they come across. The characters are well-developed and the writing is tense, although if you're into imagery that tends to be a bit lacking. Conflict is evident throughout.

The exception is John Galt's monologue. That could be called a book synopsis. It's skippable.

It amazes me that it took me so long to discover Ayn Rand and her phenomenal works. No one ever mentioned her in school to me, not even in my graduate work for my Ph.D. She seems to be ignored by the academic establishment, yet she is probably the most powerful American writer of the twentieth century, and if any novel deserves the title of The Great American Novel, it is Atlas Shrugged. Gone With the Wind, Huckleberry Finn, or any other contenders for that title are admirable books that depict an era in American history, but they are completely lacking in depicting the magnificent ideology that this novel promotes, one that is at the foundation of what America stands for and are in many ways more clearly defined in the pages of Atlas Shrugged than in the Declaration of Independence and the U.S. Constitution. Atlas Shrugged should be read by all our politicians and government officials and university leaders. Ayn Rand's novel is a great monument to capitalism, to freedom, to man's right to pursue happiness and knowledge and live without fear. And rather than simply show what is right with capitalism, she depicts what would happen if the capitalist way did not flourish in society.

Ayn Rand has been misunderstood by people who have not bothered to know anything about her. I have heard some people think she was a communist because she came from Russia, when in actually she lived through the Russian Revolution and saw the devastating effects it had upon her people, making her all the more embrace democracy and capitalism and come to the United States. It is also said she was an atheist, yet in Atlas Shrugged she makes no comments about the existence of God but simply refutes arguments that man is born in original sin and must give his life to serve others at the expense of his own happiness.

In her own words, Ayn Rand states: "My philosophy, in essence, is the concept of man as a heroic being, with his own happiness as the moral purpose of his life, with productive achievement as his noblest activity, and reason as his only absolute." After reading Atlas Shrugged, I am convinced by this argument. I wonder what kind of a travesty it is that she is not read in the high schools and universities of America; despite this, her books sell hundreds of thousands of copies each year, a quarter century after her death. If you want a book you can't put down (it's over one thousand pages yet I read it in five days over a vacation), read this novel. If you want to understand what America is and can be, read this novel. If you want to know that your life is of value, and you have the right to pursue your own happiness, read this novel. Atlas Shrugged is one of those very rare books that change lives because Rand poured her life and thought into writing it, and after half a century it is as monumental and relevant as ever.
- Tyler R. Tichelaar, author of Iron Pioneers and The Queen City, available on Amazon