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Blood River: A Journey to Africa’s Broken Heart

Tim Butcher · read by Tim Butcher

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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 in the bottom 12% 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.Blood River: A Journey to Africa’s Broken Heart
About this recording, not the book

The recording is the weak half here, not the book. Tim Butcher’s reading sits in the bottom 3% of our shelf of books for how far a reading beats the book it is reading, and −0.67 against what the book’s own readers made of it (two different crowds, each measured against its own crowd’s middle before we compare them), on 364 ratings of the narration. A different reading would change our answer; until there is one, give the first encounter to the page.

Length does not decide this

9h 41m to listen, at 1×7h 45m to listen, at 1.25×6h 27m to listen, at 1.5×5h 32m to listen, at 1.75×4h 51m 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: 363 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: 363 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: 363 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: 363 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: 363 pages at 80 pages an hour, the pace you told us. Ours is 50, about 300 words a page, read at 250 a minute.

If you must listen → commute-safe

Harder work in audio than Slaughterhouse-Five.

All the books we hold · 222

About as much work in audio as most of the books we hold.

Long books · 56

About as much work in audio as most 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−0.24
In your ears−0.32
Audio disadvantage−0.12

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 is not placed: too few readers have told Hardcover how fast it moves for us to put it anywhere honestly.
This one is not placed: too few readers have told Hardcover how fast it moves for us to put it anywhere honestly.

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
−1.28It sits in the bottom 12% of our shelf of books for how far the recording outruns the page. Past the line where we start backing the page. It is not what decided this one, though: the recording sits far enough behind its book to reach Read it on its own, which is the line drawn on the row below. When the narration is that far behind, the call is about the recording rather than about the format, and a different one would change the answer.
Narration payoff
−1.40Tim Butcher’s reading is less well received than the book it came from: in the bottom 2% of our shelf of books, on 364 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. Before we allowed for how many people rated it, the reading stood in the bottom 3% of our shelf of books. The gap between the two places is us declining to let a handful of ratings move a verdict. That is the second mark on the bar, and it is the one our line is applied to: a rule tested on the damped number would pass the same recording at 25 ratings and fail it at 5,000. 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 −0.67. 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
−0.67It sits in the bottom 22% 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 12,308 Goodreads ratings and 15 on Hardcover, each scored inside its own population first, and never added together.

For the page

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

For the recording

  • Audio is neither helping nor fighting this one
  • 364 listeners behind it

So the case for the page won it, on this recording and not on the book itself.

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
0.85How 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 reading364 people have rated this reading: as good as it getsThe second sourceHardcover knows this book, with 15 readers there: thinner than we would likeThe 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

We would need 40 reviews from each crowd before setting the two side by side, and only 19 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.

4.28·Audible
overallAudible
overall, pooled by the shop, so we hold no ruler for it
51%5 stars: 51 per cent, 252 ratings
31%4 stars: 31 per cent, 154 ratings
14%3 stars: 14 per cent, 70 ratings
3%2 stars: 3 per cent, 13 ratings
1%1 stars: 1 per cent, 6 ratings

495 ratings · performance and story, as the shop pools them

4.26−1.57 sdAudible
the performanceAudible
the performance, against Audible’s own crowd
54%5 stars: 54 per cent, 195 ratings
28%4 stars: 28 per cent, 101 ratings
12%3 stars: 12 per cent, 45 ratings
4%2 stars: 4 per cent, 13 ratings
3%1 stars: 3 per cent, 10 ratings

How often this goes badly6.3% of the people who rated the performance gave it one or two stars. More than most recordings here. The middle of our shelf is 2.0%, and half of it falls between 1.0% and 3.1%.

23 of 364 listeners gave the performance one or two stars

The shape of the room

  • United
  • Warm, this one
  • Split
  • Lukewarm

A warm room: most listeners are happy with the performance, and a small group are not.

364 ratings

4.38−0.61 sdAudible
the story, as heardAudible
the story, as heard, against Audible’s own crowd
58%5 stars: 58 per cent, 211 ratings
27%4 stars: 27 per cent, 99 ratings
12%3 stars: 12 per cent, 42 ratings
3%2 stars: 3 per cent, 10 ratings
1%1 stars: 1 per cent, 3 ratings

365 ratings

3.98−0.90 sdGoodreads
the book itselfGoodreads
the book itself, against Goodreads’ own crowd
35%5 stars: 35 per cent, 4,322 ratings
39%4 stars: 39 per cent, 4,802 ratings
18%3 stars: 18 per cent, 2,238 ratings
5%2 stars: 5 per cent, 564 ratings
3%1 stars: 3 per cent, 382 ratings

12,308 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.

  • Tim Butcherour pick9h 41m7h 45m6h 27m5h 32m4h 51m · One voice · Audible UK and US
    • The author reads it

    Performance 4.26 · Story 4.38 · 364 rated the reading · 6.3% 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

The recording we mean

Runtime
9h 41m at 1×
Read by
Tim Butcher
Kind
One voice
ASIN
B004FTSL2Q · Audible UK
Rated in
Audible UK and US · 226 + 138 ratings of the performance
Judged on
364 ratings of the narration
Published
W. F. Howes Ltd · 2008

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 41m, 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.