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Work · 7 recordings

1984

George Orwell · read by Andrew Wincott

It tells a story. Hardcover files this book as fiction, and its readers there call it dark, tense and reflective. Facts, not factors: neither plays any part in our call.

Either. Don't overthink it

Every book we have judged on how far the recording outruns the page: 201 of them, the page's answer at the left-hand end and the recording's at the right. Marked for scale: All the Light We Cannot See, To Kill a Mockingbird and Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone. This one sits between the bottom 31% and the top 42% of our shelf of books for how far the recording outruns the page. −0.40, where we start backing the page; 0.40, where we start backing the recording.1984
close call · 0.38 from tipping either way

It genuinely does not matter much: the audio case sits between the bottom 31% and the top 42% of our shelf of books for how far the recording outruns the page, the band where this figure settles nothing on its own, and neither the reading nor the format is far enough from the middle of the shelf to settle it. Andrew Wincott’s reading sits in the middle 40% of our shelf of books, on 9,092 ratings of the narration. Pick whichever you will actually finish.

Length does not decide this

12h 19m to listen, at 1×9h 51m to listen, at 1.25×8h 13m to listen, at 1.5×7h 02m to listen, at 1.75×6h 10m to listen, at 2×about 12 hours to readabout 9 hours to readabout 7 hours to readabout 6 hours to readabout 4½ hours to read

The runtime is Audible’s own, shown at the speed beside it. The reading time is our estimate: 368 pages at 30 pages an hour, the pace you told us. Ours is 50, about 300 words a page, read at 250 a minute.The runtime is Audible’s own, shown at the speed beside it. The reading time is our estimate: 368 pages at 40 pages an hour, the pace you told us. Ours is 50, about 300 words a page, read at 250 a minute.The runtime is Audible’s own, shown at the speed beside it. The reading time is our estimate: 368 pages at 50 pages an hour, which is about 300 words a page, read at 250 a minute.The runtime is Audible’s own, shown at the speed beside it. The reading time is our estimate: 368 pages at 65 pages an hour, the pace you told us. Ours is 50, about 300 words a page, read at 250 a minute.The runtime is Audible’s own, shown at the speed beside it. The reading time is our estimate: 368 pages at 80 pages an hour, the pace you told us. Ours is 50, about 300 words a page, read at 250 a minute.

Slot → commute-safe

The mark sits a hair past the line, and we have rounded the slot down: on a book where the call itself is a draw, we would rather under-ask for your attention than over-ask for it.

Harder work in audio than Slaughterhouse-Five.

All the books we hold · 222

Harder work in audio than 71% of the books we hold.

Fiction · 176

Harder work in audio than 71% of the fiction we hold.

Long books · 56

Harder work in audio than 73% of the long books we hold.

Reading load against listening load

Every book we hold placed by how much work it asks on the page, left to right, against how much it asks in your ears, bottom to top: 222 of them. Easy both ways is the bottom left corner, hard both ways the top right; above the dashed line the ears work harder, below it the page does. Marked for scale: Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone, To Kill a Mockingbird and The Diary of a Young Girl. This one is in the middle 40% of our shelf of books for effort on the page and in the middle 40% of our shelf of books for effort in your ears.
The dashed line is where a book would be same effort either way. This one sits on that line (the format is not fighting you either way), between the bottom 34% and the top 23% of our shelf of books for extra work in audio.
On the page−0.09
In your ears0.03
Audio disadvantage0.36

Where that puts this one among the books we hold: in the middle 40% of our shelf of books on both counts (effort on the page and effort in your ears). The middle of the scale is not the middle of the shelf (most books sit below the average on both), so a book at 0.00 is already in the top 43% for effort on the page. Each of the three is measured against the whole shelf separately, so the bottom figure is not the top two subtracted. It is this book’s own distance from the middle.

What the audio disadvantage is made of. Two things and no others: how fast readers say this one moves, and how demanding the reviews we read found it. There is no third: the structural one has no data source, so it contributes nothing rather than being guessed at. Both directions are declared priors we have never fitted against a real verdict, which is the weakest-evidenced part of the whole model.

Every book we could measure both features on placed by pace, fast to slow, against how demanding the reviews we read found it, plain to demanding: 166 of them. The easiest listens are the bottom left corner and the hardest the top right, which is the shaded one. Marked for scale: Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone, To Kill a Mockingbird and The Diary of a Young Girl. This one reads at about the pace of most books we hold and about as demanding as most, and neither is pushing it far from the middle of the shelf.
This one reads at about the pace of most books we hold and about as demanding as most, and neither is pushing it far from the middle of the shelf.

How the call was made

Where a bar carries ticks, the grey one is the middle of our shelf and a coloured one is a line we publish, cool where we start backing the page, warm where we start backing the recording. The evidence squares at the foot are a different thing: how far each of our four sources went, hatched where there was nothing to measure at all.

The audio case
−0.02It sits between the bottom 31% and the top 42% of our shelf of books for how far the recording outruns the page. Inside the band where neither side has made its case on this number alone, so the call is settled by what else is on the page.
Narration payoff
0.34Andrew Wincott’s reading and the book are received about equally well: in the middle 40% of our shelf of books, on 9,092 ratings of the narration. This is a difference, not a score: it sets the reading against its own book, so a much-loved book with a merely good reading sits low on this shelf even where nobody disliked either. Asked the other way (how the reading stands against what the book’s own readers made of it, which is a different crowd rating a different thing), it comes out 0.17. We report that one and never score it: two crowds that do not overlap are held together by nothing but the standardising, which is a cost the figure above does not pay.
What is at stake
0.25It sits between the bottom 27% and the top 33% of our shelf of books for how well the print crowds think of a book: middling regard, so this barely moves the call either way. Blended across 5,765,574 Goodreads ratings and 8,776 on Hardcover, each scored inside its own population first, and never added together.

For the page

  • The crowds’ regard did not reach the line where we protect a first read, this reason did not apply

For the recording

  • The voice and the book are received about level
  • Audio is neither helping nor fighting this one
  • 9,092 listeners behind it

Neither column won it: the two came out level, which is the answer above.

A bigger dot counted for more: the voice and the ear are sized by their share of the sum above, the other two by how much stands behind them. A hatched square is a reason that did not apply here, which is not the same as one that counted for little.

Evidence
1.00How much of the picture we actually have, out of 1.00: four questions, each answered as far as the source could answer it, less anything taken off for reading fewer reviews than we aim to.The reading9,092 people have rated this reading: as good as it getsThe second sourceHardcover knows this book, with 8,776 readers there: as good as it getsThe matchHow sure we are that the recording we scored is this book: as good as it getsThe reviewsWe read 300 reviews to judge how demanding it is: as good as it gets

What each crowd complains about

In the reviews we read, how often readers brought it up and how often listeners did, each against what is usual for that same crowd across our whole shelf, which is the grey tick. The track stops at 4×. Listeners are only ever compared with listeners.

Listeners of this book bring up the pace about two and a half times as often as listeners usually do, while readers of it bring it up less often than readers usually do.

What the two crowds said

Showing the stars as each shop prints them. The two crowds are not measured from the same place: on our shelf Audible’s listeners average 0.35 of a star above Goodreads’ readers, so a recording that is ordinary for Audible can still out-star a book that is genuinely well liked for Goodreads. Switch the toggle to take that difference off.Showing each figure as its distance from its own crowd’s middle on our shelf, in standard deviations, so 0 is a typical book for that crowd. Listeners start 0.35 of a star up, partly because anyone who finishes a twenty-five-hour recording chose it deliberately, and this takes that off. It is not a claim that audio is better, the story figure is still Audible’s own (people rating a story they heard), and none of it moves the verdict above.

4.59·Audible
overallAudible
overall, pooled by the shop, so we hold no ruler for it
71%5 stars: 71 per cent, 7,418 ratings
20%4 stars: 20 per cent, 2,094 ratings
6%3 stars: 6 per cent, 662 ratings
1%2 stars: 1 per cent, 152 ratings
1%1 stars: 1 per cent, 96 ratings

10,422 ratings · performance and story, as the shop pools them

4.69+0.30 sdAudible
the performanceAudible
the performance, against Audible’s own crowd
77%5 stars: 77 per cent, 7,023 ratings
17%4 stars: 17 per cent, 1,552 ratings
5%3 stars: 5 per cent, 414 ratings
1%2 stars: 1 per cent, 77 ratings
1%1 stars: 1 per cent, 50 ratings

How often this goes badly1.4% of the people who rated the performance gave it one or two stars. About typical for the shelf. The middle of our shelf is 2.0%, and half of it falls between 1.0% and 3.1%.

127 of 9,116 listeners gave the performance one or two stars

The shape of the room

  • United, this one
  • Warm
  • Split
  • Lukewarm

A united room: 77% of the listeners gave the performance five stars. A room that agrees this far leaves little to gamble on.

9,116 ratings

4.56+0.11 sdAudible
the story, as heardAudible
the story, as heard, against Audible’s own crowd
71%5 stars: 71 per cent, 6,423 ratings
19%4 stars: 19 per cent, 1,743 ratings
7%3 stars: 7 per cent, 656 ratings
2%2 stars: 2 per cent, 169 ratings
1%1 stars: 1 per cent, 101 ratings

9,092 ratings

4.21+0.13 sdGoodreads
the book itselfGoodreads
the book itself, against Goodreads’ own crowd
47%5 stars: 47 per cent, 2,737,635 ratings
33%4 stars: 33 per cent, 1,905,628 ratings
14%3 stars: 14 per cent, 802,089 ratings
4%2 stars: 4 per cent, 209,645 ratings
2%1 stars: 2 per cent, 110,577 ratings

5,765,574 ratings

Every reading we hold

7 complete readings of it, and one call above for the book: the verdict is a claim about format, not about a voice. Which voice to press play on is the next question, and this is our answer to it. Below 250 ratings of the reading we name a recording and decline to rank it.

  • Andrew Wincottour pick12h 19m9h 51m8h 13m7h 02m6h 10m · One voice · Audible UK and US

    Performance 4.69 · Story 4.56 · 9,092 rated the reading · 1.4% of the people who rated the performance gave it one or two stars

    Hear it · Audible’s clip, its length read from them on load

  • Peter Nobletoo few ratings to judge12h 38m10h 06m8h 25m7h 13m6h 19m · One voice · Audible UK

    Only 2 people have rated this reading, short of our published bar of 250, so we name it and print no scores for it.

    Hear it · Audible’s clip, its length read from them on load

  • Nathan Ashcrofttoo few ratings to judge10h 54m8h 43m7h 16m6h 14m5h 27m · One voice · Audible UK

    Only 51 people have rated this reading, short of our published bar of 250, so we name it and print no scores for it.

    Hear it · Audible’s clip, its length read from them on load

  • Diogenes Dreamertoo few ratings to judge10h 15m8h 12m6h 50m5h 51m5h 08m · One voice · Audible UK

    Only 50 people have rated this reading, short of our published bar of 250, so we name it and print no scores for it.

    Hear it · Audible’s clip, its length read from them on load

  • Adriel Brandttoo few ratings to judge11h 10m8h 56m7h 27m6h 23m5h 35m · One voice · Audible UK

    Only 29 people have rated this reading, short of our published bar of 250, so we name it and print no scores for it.

    Hear it · Audible’s clip, its length read from them on load

  • Hugh Kermodetoo few ratings to judge10h 59m8h 47m7h 19m6h 17m5h 30m · One voice · Audible UK

    Only 26 people have rated this reading, short of our published bar of 250, so we name it and print no scores for it.

    Hear it · Audible’s clip, its length read from them on load

  • Theo Solomontoo few ratings to judge12h 18m9h 50m8h 12m7h 02m6h 09m · One voice · Audible UK

    Only 2 people have rated this reading, short of our published bar of 250, so we name it and print no scores for it.

    Hear it · Audible’s clip, its length read from them on load

1 other listing we set aside, listed with the reason for eacheach one is sold as this book and is not a complete reading of it
  • Robert Noel, The Spire3h 23m2h 42m2h 15m1h 56m1h 42mNot the whole book, only 30% of the full reading

The recording we mean

Runtime
12h 19m at 1×
Read by
Andrew Wincott
Kind
One voice
ASIN
B016E6KWA6 · Audible UK
Rated in
Audible UK and US · 8,040 + 1,076 ratings of the performance
Judged on
9,092 ratings of the narration
Published
Canongate Books Ltd · 2015

Audible sorts a search by newest, so ours may not be the first one you are offered. The runtime is the check: if the one in front of you says 12h 19m, that is the reading these numbers describe. “Judged on” is the crowd behind every judgement we make about this reading: the smaller of the performance and story counts, which is why it is a little under the two shop counts added. We do not link out to a shop, and we take nothing if you buy there.