Empire cover art

Empire

The Life, Legend, and Madness of Howard Hughes

Preview

£0.00 for first 30 days

Try for £0.00
Pick 1 audiobook a month from our unmatched collection - including bestsellers and new releases.
Listen all you want to thousands of included audiobooks, Originals, celeb exclusives, and podcasts.
Access exclusive sales and deals.
£7.99/month after 30 days. Renews automatically. See here for eligibility.

Empire

By: Donald L. Barlett, James B. Steele
Narrated by: Christopher Hurt
Try for £0.00

£7.99/month after 30 days. Renews automatically. See here for eligibility.

Buy Now for £14.99

Buy Now for £14.99

Confirm Purchase
Pay using card ending in
By completing your purchase, you agree to Audible's Conditions of Use and authorise Audible to charge your designated card or any other card on file. Please see our Privacy Notice, Cookies Notice and Interest-based Ads Notice.
Cancel

About this listen

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.
Entertainment & Celebrities
activate_Holiday_promo_in_buybox_DT_T2

Listeners also enjoyed...

Five Families cover art
Pandemic cover art
The Hidden City cover art
Captain to Captain cover art
The Count of Monte Cristo (Dramatised) cover art
Reamde cover art
Bill O'Reilly's Legends and Lies: The Patriots cover art
Don Quixote cover art
Cold City cover art
Doomsday Book cover art
The Dig cover art
Area 51 cover art
Rewinder cover art
New Spring cover art
Debt of Bones cover art
A Beautiful Mind cover art

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
  • 5 Stars
    30
  • 4 Stars
    23
  • 3 Stars
    8
  • 2 Stars
    4
  • 1 Stars
    1
Performance
  • 4 out of 5 stars
  • 5 Stars
    25
  • 4 Stars
    18
  • 3 Stars
    9
  • 2 Stars
    4
  • 1 Stars
    3
Story
  • 4 out of 5 stars
  • 5 Stars
    26
  • 4 Stars
    23
  • 3 Stars
    6
  • 2 Stars
    3
  • 1 Stars
    1

Reviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.

Sort by:
Filter by:
  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

Empire

Wow excellent audible book I highly recommend hearing!
What an incredible man very talented business man but also a very troubled man with all his over excessive ways with hygiene etc.
I really enjoyed this book.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

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

Excellent. But ...

Interesting, fluid account of the man they called HRH. Good reading too.

But.

There is a peculiar and unfortunate production technique used in the audobook. The reader speaks with two different voices, as if two people are reading the book in turn. Presumably this is meant to add emphasis or something. But its just annoying.

Nonetheless its still worth listening to.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

2 people found this helpful

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

Engaging and fast talking - always helpful.

Engaging and fast talking - helpful to ADHDs. Walks into a life and brings it to life well.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

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

Not great

Poorly edited, badly recorded, very dryly narrated. ... ... .... ... ... ... ...

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

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

really bad recording

Non stop echo during the whole recording and some sections were edited later with no effort made to blend in with the rest.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

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

Facts and figures are all this story is about

Far too much emphasis on the minute details of Hughes business transactons. Learnt next to nothing about his personal life or relationships - these are just mentioned. It makes for a boring listen, no drama

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!