For those of us, like myself, that don’t realistically expect to read her books,Your reasons for feeling that way are, of course, your own, and I'm hardly one to tell you to do otherwise. But if I could offer any comment on this, let me just say this: there is a LOT of what I would call "caricaturized misrepresentation" of Rand and Rand's work out there in the wild. If your view on reading Rand is based on what you've heard about her from others, I'd strongly suggest you consider carefully if you can trust what you've been told.
On the flip-side, I'll also say this: while I personally am sympathetic to a lot of Rand's thinking / philosophy, I do think she did herself a mis-service in the way she chose to use the words "selfish" and "altruism". That is to say, her usage, while possibly pedantically correct, runs somewhat counter to the common vernacular usage, and it makes it unreasonably easy to misinterpret her meaning, or to impute things that aren't there, whether intentionally or otherwise.
Just to give an over-simplified example of what I mean... Rand never really said, say, "don't give to the poor". But she probably said something roughly like "don't give to the poor because of altruism, do it out of selfish self interest." To anybody educated in the last 30 years or so, that probably sounds very weird, because we tend to assume that "altruism" means something like "a desire to do good to others, like, for example, giving to the poor". But in her world-view, "altruism" was actually just a facade used to misdirect people and get them to buy into a mindset of subjugating the individual to the whims of the collective (and by implication, the self-appointed, corrupt, elitist rulers of the collective). The latter group of people being what she referred to as "moochers" in some of her works.
Likewise, in today's vernacular the word "selfish" has a meaning that's almost negative by its very definition. That is, to say that anything is done for "selfish" reasons is to assume a lack of charity, lack of empathy, a disregard for the welfare of others, evil motives, etc. But that isn't what Rand meant. When she says do things for selfish reasons, she really means "do things because they're what you, as rational, thinking, individual choose to do, without being coerced or manipulated". A person who holds to Rand's ideas can behave in a way that is 180 degrees removed from what we generally think of as "selfish" and still be acting in the "selfish" way that Rand advocates.
Anyway... that got longer than I meant for it to. I'll just finish by saying that I think most people should consider reading at least some of Rand's works and form their own opinions of what she is promoting, rather than simply accepting someone else's interpretation (including mine).
Also: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/volokh-conspiracy/wp/201...