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Empire  By  cover art

Empire

By: Donald L. Barlett, James B. Steele
Narrated by: Christopher Hurt
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Publisher's summary

Howard Hughes lived one of the greatest, most heroic, misunderstood, mysterious, bizarre, and tragic lives in American history. In this brilliantly documented biography, the mythology that surrounded that life is disentangled from the truth.

Hughes had always been different. Certainly his riches set him apart, but he was also tough. Orphaned and a millionaire at 18, Hughes repudiated his relatives, seized control of the Hughes Tool Company, the linchpin of his fortune, and went on to become a flamboyant movie producer, holder of many world aviation records, principal owner of Trans World Airlines, a critically important defense contractor, Hollywood's most pursued and elusive bachelor, and partner of the United States government.

This is an epic biography of an epic figure who bestrode the world like a colossus yet could not master himself.

©1979 Donald L. Barlett and James B. Steele (P)1994 Blackstone Audio, Inc.

Critic reviews

"Of all the books written about Howard Hughes, Empire is easily the best...." ( New York Times Book Review)
"A remarkable job of investigative reporting....cracks Hughes's public persona as it disentangles the psychodrama of his private doings." ( Publishers Weekly)
"[The] most responsible and authoritative biography of Hughes to date." Newsweek)

What listeners say about Empire

Average customer ratings
Overall
  • 4 out of 5 stars
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    103
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    68
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    47
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    6
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  • 4 Stars
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  • 3 Stars
    42
  • 2 Stars
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  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

Loved this from start to finish!

Where does Empire rank among all the audiobooks you’ve listened to so far?

Top

What did you like best about this story?

The story and the narrator where perfect.

What does Christopher Hurt bring to the story that you wouldn’t experience if you just read the book?

His voice and pacing were wonderful. I could listen to him read the phone book.

If you were to make a film of this book, what would the tag line be?

an amazing life

Any additional comments?

listen to it.

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6 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

Fascinating, Fascinating, Fascinating!!!

I've read several books about Howard Hughes throughout the years, but this book by Donald Bartlett, tops them all!

The author takes us on an intriguing adventure that totally captivates you from start to finish. Hughes, as has been well chronicled throughout the years, was an intriguing, yet dashing figure and personality throughout the mid-part of the last century. When he was younger, he had the world at his fingertips, with movie starlets for girlfriends anytime he wanted, boatloads full of money, the ear of every influential politician of his era, and so much more.

It's an intriguing tale of what we may nowadays call "mental illness", which was fueled by addictions to painkillers and narcotics, psychosis, a mistrust of people in general, fear of germs and, finally, his own "inner circle" closing in around him and taken advantage of him while he mindlessly toiled away the days/weeks watching television butt naked as he eventually lost control of his empire.

The story did get a little tedious when the author went into probably a little bit too much detail, and some of the business dealings that Hughes was able to construct, but other than that, this text will keep you on the edge of your seat throughout.

I don't know if I learned anything new about the life and times of Howard Hughes, but this rendition of the story that is been told before, is by far the very best. A must-read for those who like mystery, intrigue, adventure, featuring one of the wealthiest and best-known personalities that this country has ever produced.


Excellent!!!

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6 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    3 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    4 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    3 out of 5 stars

Too Much Detail on Trivial Matters

Any additional comments?

The book goes on for 30-40 minutes detailing correspondence between Howard's mother and his summer camp leader when Howard was around 7 or 8. "Please make certain Howard has plenty of thick socks for summer activites", "I assure you madame, Howard will have an ample number of socks for the summer", etc., etc. 30 to 40 minutes of this? Seriously? This could have been abridged.

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6 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    3 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    4 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    3 out of 5 stars

I want the abridged copy

Howard Hughes was obviously a complex person with a fascinating history. The problem is this book is wrapped in minutiae and a a story that I would love to hear was overpowered by trivial details

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5 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    3 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    2 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    3 out of 5 stars

Starts interesting, ends with jarring editing

There are at least 100 instances of "Summa" harshly inserted by rough editing into the second half of the book in place of "Hughes" or "Hughes Tool (Company)". Ironically, they aren't even correctly used in many instances as this book jumps back and forth through time at least a half-dozen times. It seems like they just decided to replace each and every instance after the point that told the story of the change of the name of the Hughes Tool Company to Summa.

Beyond that, the story really suffers from the time jumps. This story should have been told from start to finish, not broken into separate subjects and telling the story of each of these subjects from start to finish. At the time of the 4th or 5th subject change with its corresponding jump back in time, I started to feel like this book was never going to end and that the most interesting parts were never going to be touched on again.

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2 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    2 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    4 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    2 out of 5 stars

4 X Too Long

What disappointed you about Empire?

Mind-numbing amounts of pointless minutia. Paid by the word? Get on with it. Rambling. I'm exhausted listening to it. Details that add nothing to the story.

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2 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    4 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    4 out of 5 stars

A bit long... very detailed

I personally wanted to hear more about his flying days. That part seemed short compared to the length of this book. Overall I learned everything about Howard Hughes.

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1 person found this helpful

  • Overall
    3 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    4 out of 5 stars

Good but long

Very interesting story but it is SO long. Struggled through the last 15 hours where they got really into the details.

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1 person found this helpful

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

This Book

Thoroughly enjoyed this book. A fascinating look of Howard Hughes. I highly recommend this book.

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1 person found this helpful

  • Overall
    3 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    4 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    3 out of 5 stars

Too Long

What did you like best about Empire? What did you like least?

The transparency and revelation of the myth of Howard jhughes and the truth of his psycopathy.

Would you recommend Empire to your friends? Why or why not?

No, too long-needs serious editing-way too much detail

Was Empire worth the listening time?

half

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1 person found this helpful