I read The Fountainhead in the 80s a college student and saw Howard Roarke as a punk - not through a political spectrum. I then turned to Atlas Shrugged and found it to be a total bore. I read a few of her lesser known works and had enough. I think that when you're young, it's easy to get enticed, especially with good writing, by stories about unconventional people, especially if you're one yourself, but as we get older and learn to look beyond the prose and surface message, and dig into the author's intent, we see works in a different light. I wonder I how I'd feel reading The Fountainhead now but I've had enough of Ayn Rand for one lifetime. While I don't agree with her philosophy, I think it merits study, especially since she was an atheist; it's puzzling why so many on the religious right overlook this aspect of objectivism.