One of my roommates here at the Hacker House uses two copies of Atlas Shrugged that happened to be laying around the house to adjust the height of his monitor.

It never occurred to me that the book might have other purposes than that. I think I'm going to check out The Fountainhead first though.

I read both (Fountainhead second), and I preferred the Fountainhead first. It's a lighter read and will give you a taste for Rand's style. If you can stand the heavy ideological slant, then you might want to look into Atlas Shrugged. I don't think that they are for everyone.

Another good introduction to Ayn Rand is the 'Virtue of Selfishness'. Its a collection of her essays with some that were written by people in her group. Its pretty short (100ish pages) and in my opinion says about everything she was trying to say in Atlas Shrugged.

Yeah. I'd say read the Fountainhead first, as to not get scared away by all the character-drive philosophy in AS. The Fountainhead is a pretty inspiring read, and a fun way to get your mind thinking a bit.