One of my favorite all times books is The Fountainhead which opens with

“Howard Roark laughed.

He stood naked at the edge of a cliff. ”

Words which made me want to know who Howard Roark was and why was he standing naked at the edge of a cliff? I know the answers now and encourage you to find out for yourself.

The story follows the life of Howard Roark, an architect, and several people he interacts with, including his lover, a fellow architect, an architectural critic and a newspaper publisher.

Howard Roark is an architect who designs buildings according to the needs of their interaction  with nature and the people who will inhabit  them, not the dictatorship of current fades and fashion.

Peter Keating is another architect, an old classmate of Howard’s who will build anything the client wants, his only concern being this own monetary gain.

Ellsworth Toohey  is a newspaper columnist who shapes public ideas and “ideals” through his writing and lectures. He gleefully leads the intellectually  “death, dumb and blind” down the garden path to oblivious bliss.

Gail Wynand is a newspaper and real estate mogul who worked his way up from extreme poverty who tries to break Roark’s Integrity.

Dominique Francon is the woman which loves Roark and his only worthy equal in the book. She is a woman who thinks the world does not deserve her sincerity and intellect, because the people around her did not measure up to her standards. She  believes that greatness, such as Roark’s, is doomed to fail and will be destroyed by the ‘collectivist’ masses

Although The Fountainhead is not fundamentally about politics, it does warn against the danger of conformists and socialists,  the choice to be lead and not take the responsibility of one’s thoughts or actions.  It is a book recommend reading at least once in your lifetime.