I've told this story before, but I think it is worth retelling. I was 14 when I got home from school one day to hear my mom having a coffee klatsch with some of the girls. The were discussing a current movie, The Fountainhead. I did the unthinkable by jumping into the conversation and saying that the movie sounded interesting. Well, amid snorts and smiles, I was told it was "too deep" and that I wouldn't like it. Tell a 'teen that somethings too deep for him? That Saturday, I plunked my 25 cents down and by the end of the movie I sat there virtually paralyzed. I couldn't believe that people thought that way and talked that way. I went directly home on my trusty 3 times repainted bike , robbed the piggy bank and bought a soft cover of The Fountainhead , at I think, 95 cents - a princely sum in those days. That was it. I've been an A.R. fan ever since.

Just to show you how deeply (pun?) I was affected I bought 2 more copies of the book so I could tape Roark's speech on my bedroom and on those days when I was feeling down, I could read it at a glance and feel better. That was 69 years ago.!

By reading THE FOUNTAINHEAD in high school and following up with WE THE LIVING and then, ATLAS SHRUGGED. To show my Objectivist leanings, when I play golf at Lake Mohawk GC in Sparta, NJ, I wear a cap I purchased from the store here that reads "WHO IS JOHN GALT?" I always get smiles from fellow members who have read ATLAS SHRUGGED.

1964 - high school - Anthem, We the Living, The Fountainhead, Atlas Shrugged - in sequence.
1965-1966 - University student; Trips to NBI in NYC for lecture series
1966-1967 - Moved to NYC, Part time work for NBI (The Objectivist Newsletter, The Objectivist, NBI publishing)
1968-1970 Vietnam
1970 Back in NYC, a bit different association, then...
College, careers, retirement.
Best friend in 1964 who introduced me to Ayn Rand books is still my best friend today. So it’s been 53 years as a student of Objectivism. I no longer produce anything, except thoughts of what might and should be.

My interest in objectivism seemed to come naturally and early. I remember a teacher when I was in fifth grade who worked for the BLM (Bureau of Land Management) and he stated that if someone started a forest fire on 'public' land then they had the right to keep everyone off! I immediately rebutted with; "If someone has done nothing wrong it does not give you the right to prohibit everyone else access when they haven't done anything wrong." My sixth grade teacher taught us about the graduated income tax and why it was okay if the government took more money from someone that had more because they would still have more than someone who earned less and paid less! I was incensed and said it was unfair to take more of someone's possessions because he made more. Just because someone worked longer, smarter put more at risk didn't give someone else the right to take more.
Read many books as I got older, some were useful others were not. Talked with people in the John Birch Society. Someone mentioned Ayn Rand's books and someone told me that she believed in witchcraft and that was what her books were about. Wasn't interested until a friend read one of them to find out what they were really about. After her recommendation I read 'The Fountainhead', was hooked and sped through everything else I could find. Ayn succinctly and eloquently defined what I had always believed to be true. I find it interesting when detractors try to undermine her logic by saying things like; "I read The Fountainhead and disagree with someone who thinks only architects should be free! ?? Besides Ayn's novels I have truly enjoyed her definitive works also. Still working on understanding how to live objectively in an unfree world.

I attended my one and only Star Trek convention in Mpls / St. Paul, November 1991. Shatner and Nimoy were presenting, and the locale was close to where I was living at the time. While ambling about the expo, I discovered that several Sci-Fi authors and scientists had declared that they were Humanists. I started reading and even attended the AHA (American Humanist Assoc) conference in Portland OR, May 1992. But there were parts regarding Humanism that just didn't work for me -- the whole "interconnected web" bit with the very strong odor of "we are our brothers' keepers." My parents sent me an old tattered paperback of Atlas Shrugged the summer of 1992. I read it, cover to cover, in relatively short order. When I put the book down, I said "of course." It just all added up -- and resonated with my engineering mindset and profession. I then read Rand's other works of fiction along with The Objectivist Newsletter. To this day, I find that when encountering an individual that disagrees with Rand / Objectivism, by and large, the individual has never actually read Rand or is misrepresenting her philosophy. I am now on the 7th reading of Atlas as the parallels between the book and 'the world at large' are ominous.

I went to MIT for engineering and got exposed to Ayn Rand thru Atlas Shrugged. I lost 3 days of doing nothing BUT reading that book and that was IT.

I already had numerous Objectivist "traits" when I first saw the movie, Atlas Shrugged. After that, I was hooked...watched and bought (Blu-ray and DVD) copies of all three parts and followed up with hardback copies of Atlas Shrugged and The Fountainhead.

I'm not an Objectivist, in the purest sense of the word, but I agree with a great number of Rand's principles.

Long ago my college housemate was an Objectivist. I was curious and I bothered him with too many questions about insignificant details. He said, "Go read Atlas Shrugged. I'm not answering any more questions."

When speaking at Ford Hall Forum Ayn Rand would similarly refuse to re-answer a question she had already addressed, telling the questioner that the answer was extensively covered in AS. Initially I thought that attitude was rather callous of her. Eventually I realized that the questioners were often repeating a question in a demanding and hostile manner, just to get a hostile response from her, and she was refusing to take the bait.

I was 17, and completely ignorant of pretty much everything. Some guy actually asked me my philosphy of life, and I think the most intelligible (as opposed to intelligent) response I could summon was...."HUH?" Nothing in my upbringing (daughter of a Catholic convert, the worst kind) prepared me to even think of, much less come up with, a "philosophy of life."

Another person who I was seeing at the time and who probably was about as far from being an "ideal" objectivist as one can get, gave me a copy of The Fountainhead. That was 50 - OOps, 51 - years ago, and my life was never the same. I responded to the concepts with my entire being. Although a lot of things have changed since then, it took 20-30 years of "percolating" and re-reading all of AR's works to assimilate and incorporate them into my life, even while realizing that no one is perfect or 100% correct. It actually even cost me a marriage, but it was a bad marriage to start with anyway.

I read philosophy extensively in later high school and early college before realizing that most of my fellow students used a completely different way of relating to the world. They made decisions based on how they felt about something, without questioning the premises of their emotions. This frightened me. Was I also doing the same, being "only human"?

I gave up for a time on philosophy and involved myself in engineering -- a safe bet. I mean, even Russian Communism had engineers, right!? When I did read anything, I didn't find any answer in Camus, Nietzsche, or even Popper.

Then a liberal person told me that Atlas Shrugged "made [her] an asshole for a couple of weeks". I found this person's politics absolutely confused and distorted, so why not try reading something that clearly negated all that? So I read the book.

Since then, I have read many of Ayn Rand's non-fiction works and Leonard Peikoff's Objectivism: The Philosophy of Ayn Rand as well.

A friend and co-worker that I respected suggested that I read Atlas Shrugged in about 1978. We had had many discussions about politics and integrity, so his suggestion was based on an understanding of my beliefs at the time. I had a VHS copy of the movie The Fountainhead that I shared with him. Being a work-a-holic at the time and being absorbed by the interesting work I was engaged in, I didn't read AS until about 1982. My uncle loaned me a paperback copy that I read on airline flights over the course of a few weeks- the only time I could set aside for such a pleasure. I started my business shortly thereafter and had zero free time for years, but the seeds had been planted. I heard about Objectivism a decade later when my disgust with government had substantially increased.

I was first introduced to Rand and Objectivism while studying a 3000 page manuscript written by Neo Think author Mark Hamilton. I read Atlas Shrugged after that and was hooked.

I read Atlas Shrugged three times over the period of ten to fifteen years. Then read Anthem somewhere in between.

I had read Fountainhead and then found Atlas Shrugged in 1963, whereupon AS became my "bible" which I still hold today..

My father was a businessman, and what he passed on to me, without a name, was Objectivism. It was a goal in life. As a co-major in college of English and Philosophy, my first philosophy professor and I became friends, and while we studied Rand in class, he strongly urged me to read her work, which I promptly did. First "The Fountainhead", "Then "Atlas Shrugged" - and I was hooked. I had come home, it was like there are others like us, it had a name. It was as if reason had come alive, and I wondered why would anyone think any other way! My professor was delighted at my enthusiasm, and I was so grateful he had suggested I delve farther into Rand.

introduced in college by fellow student...perfect fit

I am a ravenous reader, and have made it a personal mission to read as many of the classics as possible. AS was on one of the lists that I read through and after that I was hooked.

I heard an ad on the radio for the first Atlas Shrugged movie. I went to see it and was hooked. I read the book and it really made sense.Interesting to be actually living it.

My most conservative of four brothers gave me all three Atlas Shrugged DVDs as as many Christmases came along.
Before that me old dino had never heard of Ayn Rand or objectivism, a word my spell checker still red lines.
Before I saw all three DVDs I became interested enough in Ayn Rand's philosophy that I stumbled into The Gulch for looking around on the internet.
I've been learning a lot here. I'm still a dictionary definition ooga-booga mystic, though. That's not going away.

I kept hearing how bad it was. I finally asked someone which book was a good exemplar. I said I'd check it out from the library just so I could see how bad it is. It turned out he had never read any of the books and knew little about them.

I grabbed the first one I found at the library, Fountainhead. I was sure I would hate it. It turned out I loved it. It made me rethink some political behavior I have seen in my life.

Teenager in New York City,New York.At a transportation place. Books on a stack to buy. Noting The Fountainhead. Unusual and distinct title. Starting to read it. Consciousness expansion mix with additional things.Beyond and including staring and looking.Like getting reading sex. Getting virginity by reading.Student at a nearby university. No allowing of sex there.Not to bring females upstairs.The place with books to buy is the next side, nearer the Hudson River. The right place in a right place near a right place. The main setting is the city where starting to read, then buying the book.Starting with The Fountainhead. Questioning who outside the book resemble the various characters. Believing character number one is a type of reflection of myself, close, and resembling me.It includes about what one may like the most.Then Atlas Shrugged. Then more, and the non-fiction.There's philosophy with the novels.There's a name.