Atlas Shrugged

By: Ayn Rand

Narrated by: Scott Brick

Length: 62 hrs and 56 mins

Publisher's summary

Peopled by larger-than-life heroes and villains, charged with towering questions of good and evil, Atlas Shrugged is Ayn Rand’s magnum opus: a philosophical revolution told in the form of an action thriller—nominated as one of America’s best-loved novels by PBS’s The Great American Read.

Atlas Shrugged is the "second most influential book for Americans today" after the Bible, according to a joint survey of five thousand people conducted by the Library of Congress and the Book of the Month Club in 1991.

In a scrap heap within an abandoned factory, the greatest invention in history lies dormant and unused. By what fatal error of judgment has its value gone unrecognized, its brilliant inventor punished rather than rewarded for his efforts?

This is the story of a man who said that he would stop the motor of the world—and did. In defense of those greatest of human qualities that have made civilization possible, he sets out to show what would happen to the world if all the heroes of innovation and industry went on strike. Is he a destroyer or a liberator? Why does he have to fight his battle not against his enemies but against those who need him most? Why does he fight his hardest battle against the woman he loves? The answers will be revealed once you discover the reason behind the baffling events that wreak havoc on the lives of the amazing men and women in this remarkable book.

Tremendous in scope and breathtaking in its suspense, Atlas Shrugged is Ayn Rand's magnum opus, which launched an ideology and a movement. With the publication of this work in 1957, Rand gained an instant following and became a phenomenon. Atlas Shrugged emerged as a premier moral apologia for capitalism, a defense that had an electrifying effect on millions of readers (and now listeners) who had never heard capitalism defended in other than technical terms.

©1985 Eugene Winick, Paul Gitlin and Leonard Peikoff (P)2008 Blackstone Audio, Inc.

Worth the wait!

My first impression was to the wonder of just how amazingly intelligent Ayn Rand truly was. I find myself asking that many times when reading books, but this one though, I was just lost in the wonder of how one person could come up with all of it. It had a wealth of thought provoking dissertations, some ran on longer than I would have liked ... but superlative in nature.

For the story itself, I hung on rooting for the good guys every down-trodden beaten step of the way. At every hurdle they crossed and every small victory won. I cringed at the (no pun intended) head-on collision of a train wreck the country was heading towards. It was agonizing to believe that people can be so crippled by their government! Then again, not really that hard to believe at all, especially if people are programmed to be mindless non-thinking entities.

Now to Scott Brick, the narrator. He did an amazing job. I listened to the book straight through; all eight parts back, to back, to back. I kept trying to find things to do just to keep my head phones on. I would not have been able to do such a thing if the narration was horrible. This is the second book I've listened to not realizing it was Scott Brick in both of them. At the end of each book, I was like "Wow! That narrator was great!" I felt he added the right voice to the characters, ALL of them, througout this entire book. Great job Mr. Brick!

To wrap this up, I am a fan of dystopian novels. About half way through this, it dawned on me that in my mind this was also a dystopian novel. Just on the polar opposite end of 1984 (Orwell). I have never heard it labeled as such, but I would recommend it as such to anyone looking for another dystopian novel to dive into and read.

One of the best book on the dangers of Socialism

I read the one star reviews before buying and am very glad I didn't take them to heart. I believe these readers totally missed the point. It's very entertaining fiction, and the main characters are not saints. The book paints a very clear picture of the flaws of becoming a socialist society, and how America could easily swing that direction. It exposes the value of work and reward, as well as the dangers of the notion of entitlement. I'm guessing the one star reviewers took offense to this perspective. I agree if could have been shorter but I enjoyed the long ride. Well written and worth the read.

My favorite book of all time!

5 stars all the way around, the narrator really brought the book to life. Ayn Rand is hard to beat!!

Best book I have ever read.

The reader from black stone audio did amazing job reading such an art piece I wish I could start over.

Possibly the best story I've ever read

This story is an amazing and very relevant story for anyone. The length is somewhat offputting but the story is every bit of fantastic, never lets up it's intensity and should be a mandatory read for youth in my opinion.

Stunning

The absolute best novel ever. Very true to today. Scott Brick is a true professional...Excellence at its best

Second only to one other book.

A truly beautiful story. I want only to have the story continue. Ayn was a visionary and ahead of her time.

This is one of the most important books ever written.

Between this book and the Bible, one can find true purpose and morality. This book should be mandatory reading in all high schools, it has a far more important message and warning of the future than any other book now currently being pushed on our children. My only hope is than more people will rediscover this book and read it, and then reflect on its true meanings.

My new favorite book

Couldn’t wait to get in my truck and go to work knowing I had more of this book in the tank.

A Long but Treasured Classic

Ayn Rand’s Atlas Shrugged is the “classic” that I’ve been told to read for a couple of decades. The characters within are passionate, some with philosophies that either clash or meld, and their stories coincide very well. Scott Brick is a wonderful narrator, too. There are so many characters in this book, it could be hard to keep them straight. But, after hearing his accents, tone of voice, and varying rhythms, it was easy to tell who was talking even when six or seven people were carrying on conversations.

The only portion I didn’t enjoy was near the end where one of the characters speaks for nearly three hours. Hearing this uninterrupted speech became boring after awhile, especially as the speaker’s ideology condemned ideology. This is the only reason I dropped the story down to four stars - not because of the thoughts clash with mine, but because what was said had already been implied earlier in the book and it could’ve been done more quickly, more efficiently, in my opinion. With that being said, it should not take away from the brilliance of Ayn Rand’s book, her imagination and character development.