Anne of Green Gables
It tells a story. Hardcover files this book as fiction, and its readers there call it lighthearted, funny and emotional. Facts, not factors: neither plays any part in our call.
Listen to it
Audio has the easy job on this one: only 5% of the reviews we read called it demanding, so nothing in it needs a page you can flick back through. The recording and the book are received about equally well: Rachel McAdams’ reading sits in the middle 40% of our shelf of books, on 23,818 ratings of the narration. So the format is doing all the work here.
Length does not decide this
9h 22m to listen, at 1×7h 30m to listen, at 1.25×6h 15m to listen, at 1.5×5h 21m to listen, at 1.75×4h 41m to listen, at 2×about 11 hours to readabout 8 hours to readabout 6 hours to readabout 5 hours to readabout 4 hours to read
The runtime is Audible’s own, shown at the speed beside it. The reading time is our estimate: 320 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: 320 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: 320 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: 320 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: 320 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
About as demanding in audio as Slaughterhouse-Five.
About as much work in audio as most of the books we hold.
About as much work in audio as most of the fiction we hold.
About as much work in audio as most of the middling-length books we hold.
Reading load against listening load
Where that puts this one among the books we hold: in the bottom 26% of our shelf of books for effort on the page and in the bottom 26% of our shelf of books for 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.
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
- 0.52It sits in the top 36% of our shelf of books for how far the recording outruns the page. Past the line where we start backing the recording.
- Narration payoff
- 0.02Rachel McAdams’ reading and the book are received about equally well: in the middle 40% of our shelf of books, on 23,818 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 0.15. 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
- 0.65It sits in the top 28% of our shelf of books for how well the print crowds think of a book: well enough regarded that a wasted first encounter costs more, so we lean towards protecting the page. Blended across 1,156,147 Goodreads ratings and 1,040 on Hardcover, each scored inside its own population first, and never added together.
For the page
- The print crowds think highly of it
For the recording
- The voice and the book are received about level
- Audio is neither helping nor fighting this one
- 23,818 listeners behind it
So the case for the recording won it, but only just.
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 reading23,818 people have rated this reading: as good as it getsThe second sourceHardcover knows this book, with 1,040 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.
Neither crowd brings any of the three up more often than its own crowd usually does. Whatever this book asks of you, its listeners are not saying the format is what makes it hard.
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.
overallAudible
overall, pooled by the shop, so we hold no ruler for it
26,310 ratings · performance and story, as the shop pools them
the performanceAudible
the performance, against Audible’s own crowd
How often this goes badly1.3% 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%.
309 of 23,924 listeners gave the performance one or two stars
The shape of the room
- United, this one
- Warm
- Split
- Lukewarm
A united room: 87% of the listeners gave the performance five stars. A room that agrees this far leaves little to gamble on.
23,924 ratings
the story, as heardAudible
the story, as heard, against Audible’s own crowd
23,818 ratings
the book itselfGoodreads
the book itself, against Goodreads’ own crowd
1,156,147 ratings
The series
Anne of Green Gables
Finished · The reading changes hands
9 books numbered on Goodreads’ list. The last one came out in 2009 and Goodreads lists nothing further. Five quiet years is where we start using that word.
The reading changes hands across the 4 volumes Audible names in our records: Rachel McAdams reads book 1, Mary Sarah book 2, Grace Conlin book 7, Barbara Caruso book 8.
From Goodreads’ own series index, checked on 11 September 2026.
Every reading we hold
5 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.
- Rachel McAdamsour pick9h 22m7h 30m6h 15m5h 21m4h 41m · One voice · Audible UK and US
Performance 4.81 · Story 4.84 · 23,818 rated the reading · 1.3% 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
- Mary Sarahalso worth hearing9h 30m7h 36m6h 20m5h 26m4h 45m · One voice · Audible UK
Performance 4.57 · Story 4.74 · 325 rated the reading · 1.5% 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
- Julia Whelantoo few ratings to judge9h 58m7h 58m6h 39m5h 42m4h 59m · One voice · Audible UK
Only 4 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
- Karen Savagetoo few ratings to judge8h 25m6h 44m5h 37m4h 49m4h 12m · One voice · Audible UK
One person has 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
- Barbara Carusotoo few ratings to judge10h 17m8h 14m6h 51m5h 53m5h 09m · One voice · Audible UK
Only 25 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
Listeners rate Rachel McAdams’s performance 0.24 of a star above Mary Sarah’s: 4.81 on 23,818 ratings against 4.57 on 325 ratings. Our call is Listen to it, and it rests on Rachel McAdams’s reading. Run the same arithmetic on Mary Sarah’s (325 ratings of the narration behind it, which is why we let it argue) and it comes out Read it: same book, same rule, a different voice. On this one the format that deserves your first encounter depends on which reading you can get.
6 other listings we set aside, listed with the reason for eacheach one is sold as this book and is not a complete reading of it
- Sandra Oh, Catherine O'Hara, Victor Garber, Michela Luci, full cast5h 29m4h 23m3h 39m3h 08m2h 45m · 313 ratingsNot the whole book, only 58% of the full reading
- Barbara Barnes, Full Cast, Sean Baker, Susan Engel2h 23m1h 54m1h 35m1h 22m1h 12m · 25 ratingsNot a straight reading of the book
- Megan Follows2h 42m2h 10m1h 48m1h 33m1h 21m · 11 ratingsAbridged: it runs 28% of the full reading
- Kate Harper3h 05m2h 28m2h 03m1h 46m1h 33m · 7 ratingsAbridged: it runs 32% of the full reading
- Annie Stewart75h 30m60h 24m50h 20m43h 09m37h 45mA box set, not this book on its own
- UncreditedNot a straight reading of the book
The recording we mean
- Runtime
- 9h 22m at 1×
- Read by
- Rachel McAdams
- Kind
- One voice
- ASIN
- B01KGL3GOY · Audible UK
- Rated in
- Audible UK and US · 2,297 + 21,627 ratings of the performance
- Judged on
- 23,818 ratings of the narration
- Published
- Audible Studios · 2016
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 9h 22m, 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.