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.

"It IS all about what others are thinking "
For some reason it stands out when Peter Keating was disappointed the housekeeper saw him walking down the stairs and didn't react. He wanted him to genuflect to the boss or show contempt for the boss, anything besides just going about his job and minding his own business.

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.

Interesting thought. It IS all about what others are thinking and how to control what they are thinking. What else is social media really used for these days. I dont do any of that- it seems boring and useless to me.

That was in 1962 for me. Tuition was $1700 a year back then (before all this student loan stuff offered by the government which inflated the tuitions like crazy). I learned there that I could understand anything I put my mind to, and it took away any fear I might have had about trying new things. I have used that since that time in starting numerous businesses and being a successful inventor.

"always trying to figure out what others are thinking"
It's annoying if I have to do it for a cause, and for some people it becomes a habit like for Peter Keating. They're not doing it so they can make money and go live their dream. It becomes all the life/dream they have. It's probably far from the most profound thing Rand wrote about, but it meant a lot for me to learn maybe people who do that have no end goal. Maybe this is their thing, this is what gives them that feeling of getting something working... they just want other people to react to them.

I wish I had gone to MIT and found Ayn Rand at that age. I got accepted to an elite school, but I went to a state school b/c I didn't know if I could afford more. Knowing what I know now, I would just work my tail off to go to the better school. Maybe if I had read Ayn Rand in high school I would have, but I'm not sure I would have gotten it.

I find Objectivism very relaxing. Collectivism seems to me to be very stressful, always trying to figure out what others are thinking and are going to do. Personal responsibility lets me think just about whats important to me. Others can figure out their own lives without me interfering in them.

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.

introduced in college by fellow student...perfect fit

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.

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.

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.

Maybe the university then is more with existenstentialism.Noting the book and the book includes getting away from philosophies not with the book.

A number of spouses are not comprehending. Maybe believing what separates talk. One of the spouses causes things, including libraries, to get away from the house which gets away. Since, getting numbers of free copies of a few.

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.

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.

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.!

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.

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.