The Fountainhead

By: Ayn Rand

Narrated by: Christopher Hurt

Length: 32 hrs and 5 mins

Publisher's summary

One of the 20th century's most challenging novels of ideas, The Fountainhead champions the cause of individualism through the story of a gifted young architect who defies the tyranny of conventional public opinion. The struggle for personal integrity in a world that values conformity above creativity is powerfully illustrated through three characters: Howard Roarke, the genius who is resented because he creates purely for the delight of his own work and on no other terms; Gail Wynand, the newspaper mogul and self-made millionaire whose power was bought by sacrificing his ideals to the lowest common denominator of public taste; and Dominique Francon, the devastating beauty whose desperate search for meaning has been twisted, through despair, into a quest to destroy the single object of her desire: Howard Roarke. Dramatic, poetic, and demanding, The Fountainhead remains one of the towering books on the contemporary intellectual scene.

©1943 The Bobbs-Merrill Company; 1968 Ayn Rand; 1993 Leonard Peikoff (P)1994 Blackstone Audio Inc.

Critic reviews

"Ayn Rand is a writer of great power. She has a subtle and ingenious mind and the capacity of writing brilliantly, beautifully, bitterly." ( New York Times Book Review)

Breath taking

It’s an incredible book that hits hard in your beliefs. One of the best books I read in my life and it will be hard to find anything else that matches its quality

great narrator

Well written characters if you're an ideolog. Romanticized versions of people that don't exist and put in to conditions that also don't exist. it's like jacking off, I enjoyed it! It strokes the ego of the elitist in me, but ultimately I knew I was jacking off to fantasy.

Must Read

Such a great story. Amazing character development and important ideas. All should read/listen. Narrator was also very good.

2nd Only to Atlas

I recently discovered Ayn Rand recently, and listened to Atlas Shrugged, and it was the best book I have read or listened to. I read Fountainhead next not expecting it to be anything as good as Atlas, but it was just about as great. It's different but similar, a little quieter but just as thought provoking. Such a range of characters. Is it coincident between the two books, the two main ladies have a name that start with D, and the two main men have the initials HR?

So twisted I loved it!

This novel is by far the most memorable I have ever read. Ayn Rand is surely a different author by all means and this novel is not for the close minded. Despite its excessive length, I enjoyed every day the turn of events and the interaction between the characters to the extent that it caused real mood swings for me!

After reading the fountainhead, I don't think I'm the same person at least in the way I view people around me. Try it but be guarded with the length; you need to assign a lot of time for this listening.

More than just a story

This book has changed my life. I recommend everyone read it. This story is an illustration of humankind that will change the way you view the world around you.

The G.O.A.T

The Greatest [book] Of All Time! Not kidding. I usually only rate books I read, but this one deserves my expression acknowledging its rank at the top of all books I’ve ever read or listened to.

A masterpiece

It is for a work & performance such as this that I withhold that 5th star from other books that I love.

Omg fabulous book

So refreshing and what a surprise. What I imagined the book to be about, it was nothing like that. the story I never would’ve envisioned in my life. It shocked me, made me angry, gasp out loud. What an experience! It’s hard to believe this was a book written in the 1920s. It sounds so contemporary, Ripe for today.

this is an important book everybody should read

this book illustrates the evil of a collective mindset and the honor of the individual everybody should read it.