-- John Rogers
I'm been an active Objectivist for the last two years and I've met dozens of others. They're a diverse bunch (I know Objectivist actors, Objectivist musicians, Objectivist academics, Objectivist finance guys, tons of Objectivist programmers), but in general, I'd say they're way more friendly, less cynical and more optimistic than the majority of people I meet. They're fun to be around and are usually working towards some personally meaningful life goals.
I do think that teenagers probably shouldn't read Atlas Shrugged -- they're too likely to take away a shallow understanding of the message. I first read it just before my 25th birthday, and I think it's best read in your mid-20s, when your youthful idealism starts crashing into practical reality.
An index of her thoughts on many topics: http://aynrandlexicon.com/book/conceptual.html
A graduation speech which summarises her views on philosophy in general: http://fare.tunes.org/liberty/library/pwni.html
Her most technical work, her theory of concept-formation (and the book that sold me on her ideas): https://www.amazon.com/Introduction-Objectivist-Epistemology...
But yeah, garden variety objectivists, just like garden variety communists or people generally really, are good people.
It's been a long time, but that seems like a good piece of fiction that covers similar themes without getting bogged down in plot and/or dogmatism.
Huh. The idea of Rand as kind of a weird mirror image of Marx, much better as a critic of a particular system than a prescriber of solutions (though, even with his problems in this regard, Marx is much better than Rand here), is interesting.