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Truly a must-read. If only because Ayn Rand is so virulently hated by her critics, one should make some attempt to understand where she is coming from and what triggers so many people against her. She is a strong woman who powerfully writes against collectivism, the evils of which she knew firsthand from the earlier part of her life spent living in it. As literature, her works are well-written; this one in particular gets hard to put down, especially during the more pivotal monologues. Unlike in Atlas Shrugged, the antagonist Toohey gives one of the most important and powerful monologues near the end of the book, topped only by the one following delivered by the protagonist Roark. The two together book-end Rand's own philosophy rather clearly and in sharp relief. Also unlike Atlas Shrugged, Fountainhead never feels long and was just the right length. Indeed, I found myself becoming angry with Rand when I thought she was going in one direction toward the end of the book, but she surprised me after all and left me quite satisfied as to how she untangled it all.
In terms of her philosophy, because Rand saw collectivism firsthand, her critique of it is always impactful. She correctly understood that reason is why humans ride horses and not the other way round; surely it is not our great strength, claws or fangs that put us on top. However, she completely misses the social element, which is also why humans are on top. She emphasizes the need for interactions between humans to be voluntary to enable each person to maximize his or her own potential. However, her categorical rejection of sacrifice and charity miss the voluntary nature of those acts as well. There is a reason none of Rand's protagonists in any of her works have any children. She can't address the problem from her philosophical framework. She correctly realizes that forced "charity" benefits the person wielding the force first of all, before any of the purported recipients of it; forced self-sacrifice or service likewise have their own beneficiaries, who inevitably are the ones with the force.
But in Rand's world, there would be no soldiers, police, firefighters, or parents. Perhaps the world would be better off with no soldiers, but Rand would be the first to agree that those who would commit aggression against those they perceive as vulnerable will always be with us, hence a need to organize defense. There can be no case made by Rand for selfless sacrifice, and the few instances she makes of characters willing to sacrifice for one another she fails to provide a justification, making only mystical references.
Put another way, Rand could never have published one book on her own power alone. If she were primeval cavewoman, naked and without tools, weapons, shelter, food, etc., just as humankind was in the beginning, she could not in her entire life produce a typewriter, even if you provided her the blueprints and explained everything. Obtaining the materials and using them to fashion tools to extract the materials needed to make a typewriter (much less a printing press) would have taken a single person in such a state more than a lifetime. Just fashioning her own modern clothing, shelter, etc., would have been beyond her capacity without the accumulation of the physical capital needed to perform such tasks that we can take completely for granted in our era.
There is a middle ground, where people are enabled to voluntarily interact with one another, to include voluntarily sacrificing for one another for their own motives. One can imagine our Paleolithic ancestors, with the cavemen and their sharpened sticks surrounding the mammoth to obtain dinner for the clan. It may have taken one or two to get in front of the beast, to slow it down and distract it, for enough of the rest to bring it down. Those in front may or may not have joined in the feast after, but for them, none of the clan would have had dinner. Survival of self and survival of species are two of humanity's remaining instincts for a reason, despite the fact that they often conflict with one another.
If for no other reason than to get Rand's very sharp idea about what is wrong with collectivism, Fountainhead is a terrific read. Heck, just as an engaging story well told, it belongs in the canon of great literature. Read it alongside The Grapes of Wrath to get two very different viewpoints, both well-written. But whatever you do, read it. I suggest taking it on before Atlas Shrugged; it's shorter and more tightly-woven, though Atlas Shrugged deserves your read, too.