Atlas shrugged is a 1080 pages 4 decades bestseller novel about Ayn Rand's Philosophy: Objectivism.

The name "Objectivism" derives from the principle that human knowledge and values are objective: they are not created by the thoughts one has, but are determined by the nature of reality, to be discovered by man's mind.

Atlas Shrugged was inspired by the author’s fury that people wasted the one capacity distinguishing them from other animals: reason. Those who no longer asked “Why am I alive?” or “What am I going to do or create that can justify my existence?” were to Rand as good as dead.

Here is the way she defines her philosophy in the book Atlas Shrugged:
"My philosophy, in essence, is the concept of man as a heroic being, with his own happiness as the moral purpose of his life, with productive achievement as his noblest activity, and reason as his only absolute."

This book may be a very long one to read but like other great novels its a world you enter rather than a book you read. Atlas Shrugged holds a person’s greatest duty to be the appreciation of the joy of being alive.