Fountainhead & Atlas Shrugged

I picked up Atlas Shrugged today; after putting it off for a good while. I was introduced to Fountainhead by a co-worker at my old job who was a "conservative" and pretty enthusiastic about it. He would always get into heated exchanges with the "liberal" group at the job, and they'd go back and forth for days about certain topics. They liked to watch political commentators pretty often; and they'd even get away with not doing work sometimes if the manager walked by and the topic was controversial enough. Anyway, I was always indifferent about politics and he'd sometimes try to ask me questions to get me involved and see whether I was left or right wing.

After he judged me a "left-wing" he bought me the book Fountainhead because the author (Ann Rand) wrote these books to convey her philosophy, Objectivism. I admit, that book was one of the best I ever read, probably my favorite one. I really identified with the protagonist (Howard Roark) because he was sort of detached from society in that he didn't care about what people thought of him. He wasn't a really leader, and definitely not a follower --but a loner. Its pretty similar to the movie Aviator which was about Howard Hughes, and they went through similar trials and tribulations. Anyway, I definitely see the conservative view in a better perspective, but I think most people would still consider me a "liberal". I consider myself neutral.

Anyway, I heard alot of good things about Atlas Shrugged; alot of people seem to agree that its more polished than Fountainhead, with the characters being more complex and having more depth.