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Audition

Ryū Murakami · read by Kenichiro Thomson

Not enough to go on

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 is not placed: we have no audio case for it.
Every call we have made is on that line. This one is not: with no audio case for it, there is nowhere honest to put it.

One person has rated the narration, which is far too few to tell a good reading from a lucky one. We know plenty about the book; it is the recording we cannot judge.

What you can do Press play on the sample and judge the voice yourself, because it is the half of the question too few listeners have answered.

Last searched Audible UK ·

Length does not decide this

5h 59m to listen, at 1×4h 47m to listen, at 1.25×3h 59m to listen, at 1.5×3h 25m to listen, at 1.75×3h 00m to listen, at 2×about 7 hours to readabout 5 hours to readabout 4 hours to readabout 3 hours to readabout 2½ hours to read

The runtime is Audible’s own, shown at the speed beside it. The reading time is our estimate: 208 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: 208 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: 208 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: 208 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: 208 pages at 80 pages an hour, the pace you told us. Ours is 50, about 300 words a page, read at 250 a minute.

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 bottom 6% of our shelf of books for effort on the page and in the bottom 9% 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 below that line (the page asks more of you here than audio does), in the bottom 18% of our shelf of books for extra work in audio.
On the page−0.95
In your ears−1.32
Audio disadvantage−0.83

Where that puts this one among the books we hold: in the bottom 6% of our shelf of books for effort on the page and in the bottom 9% 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.

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 easier going than most, which is what leaves the format leaning towards the recording.
This one reads at about the pace of most books we hold and easier going than most, which is what leaves the format leaning towards the recording.

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.

What is at stake
−2.82It sits in the bottom 1% of our shelf of books for how well the print crowds think of a book: not a book the crowds are precious about, so there is less to protect and we can be relaxed about it. Blended across 24,712 Goodreads ratings and 110 on Hardcover, each scored inside its own population first, and never added together.
Evidence
0.59How 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 reading1 person has rated this reading: thinThe second sourceHardcover knows this book, with 110 readers there: enough to lean onThe 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 getsWe are also missing something we treat as essential: only 1 rating of the narration.

What each crowd complains about

We would need 40 reviews from each crowd before setting the two side by side, and only 24 of the reviews we read said they listened to it. So we are not drawing this one.

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.

1 rating of this readingstar chartstoo few to draw beside the book’s, and 250 is where we start trusting the shape
5.00·Audible
overallAudible
overall, pooled by the shop, so we hold no ruler for it
100%5 stars: 100 per cent, 1 rating
0%4 stars: 0 per cent, 0 ratings
0%3 stars: 0 per cent, 0 ratings
0%2 stars: 0 per cent, 0 ratings
0%1 stars: 0 per cent, 0 ratings

1 rating · performance and story, as the shop pools them

5.00+1.62 sdAudible
the performanceAudible
the performance, against Audible’s own crowd
100%5 stars: 100 per cent, 1 rating
0%4 stars: 0 per cent, 0 ratings
0%3 stars: 0 per cent, 0 ratings
0%2 stars: 0 per cent, 0 ratings
0%1 stars: 0 per cent, 0 ratings

1 rating

5.00+1.86 sdAudible
the story, as heardAudible
the story, as heard, against Audible’s own crowd
100%5 stars: 100 per cent, 1 rating
0%4 stars: 0 per cent, 0 ratings
0%3 stars: 0 per cent, 0 ratings
0%2 stars: 0 per cent, 0 ratings
0%1 stars: 0 per cent, 0 ratings

1 rating

3.61−2.54 sdGoodreads
the book itselfGoodreads
the book itself, against Goodreads’ own crowd
19%5 stars: 19 per cent, 4,665 ratings
37%4 stars: 37 per cent, 9,088 ratings
33%3 stars: 33 per cent, 8,210 ratings
9%2 stars: 9 per cent, 2,189 ratings
2%1 stars: 2 per cent, 560 ratings

24,712 ratings

Every reading we hold

One complete reading of this book, and it is the reading every audio figure above is measured on. If there is another, we have not found it. The shelf grows in reviewed batches, never because somebody searched for a book.

  • Kenichiro Thomsonthe one we measured5h 59m4h 47m3h 59m3h 25m3h 00m · 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

The recording these numbers came from

Runtime
5h 59m at 1×
Read by
Kenichiro Thomson
Kind
One voice
ASIN
B0FQVHMYKL · Audible UK
Judged on
1 rating of the narration
Published
Bloomsbury Publishing · 2025

Too few people have rated this reading for us to call it our pick (our published bar is 250), so these are its details rather than a recommendation, and Audible sorts a search by newest, so check before you buy. The runtime is the check: if the one in front of you says 5h 59m, 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.