I knew this was a special book when within 10 minutes of starting to read it I had to get out my marker pen to highlight passages I knew I wanted to quote at some time in the future. I normally never mark my books in any way, but this time the quotes were just too good to pass up. The start of the book is unparalleled in its impact, as Roark demonstrates a way of living that I have not encountered before in anything that I've read or experienced.

That's the good news. The bad news is that Roark doesn't really change throughout the book, and so there's not really that much to write about him, thus forcing Rand to spend most of the book on less interesting characters like Keating and Toohey. I also found the romance between Roark and Dominique bizarre, frankly.

Still, this is a book that forces you to really think about your values and how you're living your life, which is not something that can be said for most fiction books. I'll have to put at least Atlas Shrugged and probably more of Rand's writings on my todo-list.