Atlas Shrugged
Ayn Rand — Ayn Rand Institute, 1957
I swear by my life and my love of it that I will never live for the sake of another man, nor ask another man to live for mine.
Commentary: A 1,000-page argument that the people who build things are the load-bearing walls of civilization — and what happens when they stop. The characters are archetypes, which is the point: you’ll start seeing them everywhere once you’ve read it.