How to Win Friends & Influence People
It explains. Hardcover files this book as non-fiction. A fact, not a factor: it plays no part in our call.
Either. Don't overthink it
It genuinely does not matter much: the audio case sits between the bottom 31% and the top 42% of our shelf of books for how far the recording outruns the page, the band where this figure settles nothing on its own, and neither the reading nor the format is far enough from the middle of the shelf to settle it. Andrew Macmillan’s reading sits in the middle 40% of our shelf of books, on 91,059 ratings of the narration. Pick whichever you will actually finish.
Length does not decide this
7h 15m to listen, at 1×5h 48m to listen, at 1.25×4h 50m to listen, at 1.5×4h 09m to listen, at 1.75×3h 38m 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.
Slot → commute-safe
About as demanding in audio as Slaughterhouse-Five.
About as much work in audio as most of the books we hold.
Easier to hear than 89% of the non-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 17% of our shelf of books for effort on the page and in the bottom 23% 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
- 0.37It sits between the bottom 31% and the top 42% of our shelf of books for how far the recording outruns the page. Inside the band where neither side has made its case on this number alone, so the call is settled by what else is on the page.
- Narration payoff
- −0.11Andrew Macmillan’s reading and the book are received about equally well: in the middle 40% of our shelf of books, on 91,059 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. That is measured on standardised figures rather than on the stars in the charts below, and here the two disagree: listeners mark a performance higher than a story as a rule, 4.62 against 4.54 across our shelf, so this recording’s 4.70 for the performance beside 4.69 for the story is not the level pair it looks. Against their own crowds they are +0.33 and +0.63, which is the same sum the toggle over those charts does. 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 0.21. 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
- 0.02It sits between the bottom 27% and the top 33% of our shelf of books for how well the print crowds think of a book: middling regard, so this barely moves the call either way. Blended across 1,194,568 Goodreads ratings and 1,328 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 and the book are received about level
- Audio is neither helping nor fighting this one
- 91,059 listeners behind it
Neither column won it: the two came out level, which is the answer above.
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 reading91,059 people have rated this reading: as good as it getsThe second sourceHardcover knows this book, with 1,328 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.
Listeners of this book bring up keeping the names straight more than four times as often as listeners usually do, while readers of it bring it up about twice 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.
overallAudible
overall, pooled by the shop, so we hold no ruler for it
114,672 ratings · performance and story, as the shop pools them
the performanceAudible
the performance, against Audible’s own crowd
How often this goes badly1.7% 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%.
1,518 of 91,735 listeners gave the performance one or two stars
The shape of the room
- United, this one
- Warm
- Split
- Lukewarm
A united room: 79% of the listeners gave the performance five stars. A room that agrees this far leaves little to gamble on.
91,735 ratings
the story, as heardAudible
the story, as heard, against Audible’s own crowd
91,059 ratings
the book itselfGoodreads
the book itself, against Goodreads’ own crowd
1,194,568 ratings
Every reading we hold
4 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.
- Andrew Macmillanour pick7h 15m5h 48m4h 50m4h 09m3h 38m · One voice · Audible UK and US
Performance 4.70 · Story 4.69 · 91,059 rated the reading · 1.7% 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
- Robert Petkofftoo few ratings to judge8h 18m6h 38m5h 32m4h 45m4h 09m · One voice · Audible UK
Only 76 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
- Richard Bhakti Kleintoo few ratings to judge8h 02m6h 26m5h 21m4h 35m4h 01m · 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
- Rupert Degastoo few ratings to judge7h 08m5h 42m4h 45m4h 05m3h 34m · 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
1 other listing we set aside, listed with the reason for eacheach one is sold as this book and is not a complete reading of it
- UncreditedNot a straight reading of the book
The recording we mean
- Runtime
- 7h 15m at 1×
- Read by
- Andrew Macmillan
- Kind
- One voice
- ASIN
- B004EXIYZM · Audible UK
- Rated in
- Audible UK and US · 10,109 + 81,626 ratings of the performance
- Judged on
- 91,059 ratings of the narration
- Published
- Simon & Schuster Audio · 2004
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 7h 15m, 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.