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Work · 7 recordings

Don Quixote

Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra · read by Roy McMillan

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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 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.Don Quixote
close call · 0.00 clear of the line where this would stop being a listen

Roy McMillan’s reading is what wins it: it lands in the top 13% of our shelf of books, on 1,878 ratings of the narration, which is a lot of credit for a voice. The book itself is no pushover in audio (12% of the reviews we read called it demanding), so give it your attention rather than the washing-up; the reading earns it.

Length does not decide this

36h 05m to listen, at 1×28h 52m to listen, at 1.25×24h 03m to listen, at 1.5×20h 37m to listen, at 1.75×18h 03m to listen, at 2×about 34 hours to readabout 26 hours to readabout 20 hours to readabout 16 hours to readabout 13 hours to read

The runtime is Audible’s own, shown at the speed beside it. The reading time is our estimate: 1,023 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: 1,023 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: 1,023 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: 1,023 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: 1,023 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 → dedicated listening only

Easier in audio than The Handmaid's Tale.

All the books we hold · 222

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

Doorstoppers · 54

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

  • Hardcover barely knows this book, so the pace and second-crowd figures rest on very few people.

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 top 25% of our shelf of books for effort on the page and in the top 27% 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 page0.37
In your ears0.48
Audio disadvantage0.33

Where that puts this one among the books we hold: in the top 25% of our shelf of books for effort on the page and in the top 27% 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 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
0.40It sits in the top 42% of our shelf of books for how far the recording outruns the page. Past the line where we start backing the recording.
Narration payoff
0.73Roy McMillan’s reading is better received than the book it came from: in the top 13% of our shelf of books, on 1,878 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 1.20. 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
−1.16It sits in the bottom 10% 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 315,551 Goodreads ratings and 1 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 beats the book
  • Audio is neither helping nor fighting this one
  • 1,878 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
0.74How 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 reading1,878 people have rated this reading: as good as it getsThe second sourceHardcover knows this book, with 1 reader there: thinThe 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 how hard it is to follow about one and a half times as often as listeners usually do, while readers of it bring it up about as often as 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.

4.37·Audible
overallAudible
overall, pooled by the shop, so we hold no ruler for it
62%5 stars: 62 per cent, 1,356 ratings
22%4 stars: 22 per cent, 492 ratings
9%3 stars: 9 per cent, 208 ratings
4%2 stars: 4 per cent, 78 ratings
3%1 stars: 3 per cent, 60 ratings

2,194 ratings · performance and story, as the shop pools them

4.63+0.04 sdAudible
the performanceAudible
the performance, against Audible’s own crowd
76%5 stars: 76 per cent, 1,427 ratings
16%4 stars: 16 per cent, 303 ratings
5%3 stars: 5 per cent, 103 ratings
1%2 stars: 1 per cent, 23 ratings
2%1 stars: 2 per cent, 29 ratings

How often this goes badly2.8% 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%.

52 of 1,885 listeners gave the performance one or two stars

The shape of the room

  • United, this one
  • Warm
  • Split
  • Lukewarm

A united room: 76% of the listeners gave the performance five stars. A room that agrees this far leaves little to gamble on.

1,885 ratings

4.36−0.72 sdAudible
the story, as heardAudible
the story, as heard, against Audible’s own crowd
61%5 stars: 61 per cent, 1,149 ratings
22%4 stars: 22 per cent, 406 ratings
11%3 stars: 11 per cent, 211 ratings
4%2 stars: 4 per cent, 67 ratings
2%1 stars: 2 per cent, 45 ratings

1,878 ratings

3.92−1.16 sdGoodreads
the book itselfGoodreads
the book itself, against Goodreads’ own crowd
36%5 stars: 36 per cent, 113,854 ratings
32%4 stars: 32 per cent, 100,373 ratings
22%3 stars: 22 per cent, 70,646 ratings
7%2 stars: 7 per cent, 22,209 ratings
3%1 stars: 3 per cent, 8,469 ratings

315,551 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.

  • Roy McMillanour pick36h 05m28h 52m24h 03m20h 37m18h 03m · One voice · Audible UK and US

    Performance 4.63 · Story 4.36 · 1,878 rated the reading · 2.8% 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

  • Michael Pagetoo few ratings to judge41h 40m33h 20m27h 47m23h 49m20h 50m · One voice · Audible UK

    Only 5 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

  • Charlton Griffintoo few ratings to judge43h 32m34h 50m29h 01m24h 53m21h 46m · One voice · Audible UK

    Only 7 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

  • Kayvan Novak, Josh Cohen, Alistair Petrie and 1 more voicetoo few ratings to judge
    All 4 voices in this reading
    • Kayvan Novak
    • Josh Cohen
    • Alistair Petrie
    • Richard Hughes
    39h 17m31h 26m26h 11m22h 27m19h 39m · Read by 4 voices · Audible UK

    Only 136 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

  • Robert Whitfieldtoo few ratings to judge36h 42m29h 22m24h 28m20h 58m18h 21m · One voice · Audible UK

    Only 99 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

  • Wilfred Morgantoo few ratings to judge40h 17m32h 14m26h 51m23h 01m20h 09m · One voice · 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

  • Jonathan Keebletoo few ratings to judge39h 34m31h 39m26h 23m22h 37m19h 47m · One voice · 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

2 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
  • full cast, Bernard Cribbins, Ronald Baddiley, Bob Grant3h 43m2h 58m2h 29m2h 07m1h 52m · 5 ratingsNot a straight reading of the book
  • Uncredited12h 00m9h 36m8h 00m6h 51m6h 00mNot the whole book, only 30% of the full reading

The recording we mean

Runtime
36h 05m at 1×
Read by
Roy McMillan
Kind
One voice
ASIN
B0052XUR3K · Audible UK
Rated in
Audible UK and US · 956 + 929 ratings of the performance
Judged on
1,878 ratings of the narration
Published
Naxos AudioBooks · 2011

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 36h 05m, 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.