Brave New World
It tells a story. Hardcover files this book as fiction, and its readers there call it reflective, challenging and dark. Facts, not factors: neither plays any part in our call.
Read it
Both halves point at the page: 11% of the reviews we read called it demanding, and Michael York’s reading lands in the bottom 18% of our shelf of books, on 32,105 ratings of the narration.
Length does not decide this
8h 00m to listen, at 1×6h 24m to listen, at 1.25×5h 20m to listen, at 1.5×4h 34m to listen, at 1.75×4h 00m to listen, at 2×about 10 hours to readabout 7 hours to readabout 6 hours to readabout 4½ hours to readabout 3½ hours to read
The runtime is Audible’s own, shown at the speed beside it. The reading time is our estimate: 288 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: 288 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: 288 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: 288 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: 288 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 → dedicated listening only
Easier in audio than The Handmaid's Tale.
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 top 30% 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 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
- −0.67It sits in the bottom 22% of our shelf of books for how far the recording outruns the page. Past the line where we start backing the page.
- Narration payoff
- −0.38Michael York’s reading is less well received than the book it came from: in the bottom 18% of our shelf of books, on 32,105 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 −0.48. 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
- −0.80It sits in the bottom 18% 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 2,154,358 Goodreads ratings and 4,055 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
- 32,105 listeners behind it
So the case for the page 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 reading32,105 people have rated this reading: as good as it getsThe second sourceHardcover knows this book, with 4,055 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
We would need 40 reviews from each crowd before setting the two side by side, and only 34 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.
overallAudible
overall, pooled by the shop, so we hold no ruler for it
37,061 ratings · performance and story, as the shop pools them
the performanceAudible
the performance, against Audible’s own crowd
How often this goes badly6.5% 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%.
2,102 of 32,113 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.
32,113 ratings
the story, as heardAudible
the story, as heard, against Audible’s own crowd
32,105 ratings
the book itselfGoodreads
the book itself, against Goodreads’ own crowd
2,154,358 ratings
Every reading we hold
Two 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.
- Michael Yorkour pick8h 00m6h 24m5h 20m4h 34m4h 00m · One voice · Audible UK and US
Performance 4.30 · Story 4.10 · 32,105 rated the reading · 6.5% 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
- Geoffrey Giuliano, The Arktoo few ratings to judge8h 30m6h 48m5h 40m4h 51m4h 15m · Two voices · Audible UK
Nobody has rated this one in either shop, so we have nothing to go on.
Hear it · Audible’s clip, its length read from them on load
3 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
- Anton Lesser, Jonathan Coy, Justin Salinger, Pippa Bennett-Warner, full cast1h 53m1h 30m1h 15m1h 05m57 min · 140 ratingsNot a straight reading of the book
- Aldous Huxley1h 00m48 min40 min34 min30 min · 48 ratingsNot a straight reading of the book
- Aldous Huxley4h 08m3h 18m2h 45m2h 22m2h 04m · 1 ratingsNot the whole book, only 50% of the full reading
The recording we mean
- Runtime
- 8h 00m at 1×
- Read by
- Michael York
- Kind
- One voice
- ASIN
- B004EVP6BY · Audible UK
- Rated in
- Audible UK and US · 5,054 + 27,059 ratings of the performance
- Judged on
- 32,105 ratings of the narration
- Published
- Blackstone Audio, Inc. · 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 8h 00m, 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.