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In Cold Blood

Truman Capote · read by Scott Brick

It explains. Hardcover files this book as non-fiction, and its readers there call it informative, dark and tense. Facts, not factors: neither plays any part in our call.

Read it

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 28% 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.In Cold Blood
close call · 0.05 clear of the line where this would stop being a read

Audio is doing this one no favours: 21 readers call it slow. That is a book that wants a page you can turn back to.

Length does not decide this

14h 27m to listen, at 1×11h 34m to listen, at 1.25×9h 38m to listen, at 1.5×8h 15m to listen, at 1.75×7h 14m to listen, at 2×about 11 hours to readabout 9 hours to readabout 7 hours to readabout 5 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: 343 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: 343 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: 343 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: 343 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: 343 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

About as demanding in audio as The Handmaid's Tale.

All the books we hold · 222

Harder work in audio than 79% of the books we hold.

Non-fiction · 27

Harder work in audio than 70% of the non-fiction we hold.

Middling-length books · 55

Harder work in audio than 84% of the middling-length 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 above that line (audio asks more of you here than the page does), in the top 21% of our shelf of books for extra work in audio.
On the page−0.40
In your ears−0.18
Audio disadvantage0.61

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 reads slower than most books we hold and about as demanding as most, which is what leaves the format leaning towards the page.
This one reads slower than most books we hold and about as demanding as most, which is what leaves the format leaning towards the page.

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
−0.45It sits in the bottom 28% of our shelf of books for how far the recording outruns the page. Past the line where we start backing the page.
Narration payoff
0.15Scott Brick’s reading and the book are received about equally well: in the middle 40% of our shelf of books, on 13,795 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 0.34. 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
0.01It 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 756,035 Goodreads ratings and 924 on Hardcover, each scored inside its own population first, and never added together.

For the page

  • A hard text to follow by ear
  • 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
  • 13,795 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 reading13,795 people have rated this reading: as good as it getsThe second sourceHardcover knows this book, with 924 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 the pace about twice as often as listeners usually do, while readers of it bring it up about 1.7 times 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.

4.45·Audible
overallAudible
overall, pooled by the shop, so we hold no ruler for it
63%5 stars: 63 per cent, 10,452 ratings
25%4 stars: 25 per cent, 4,147 ratings
9%3 stars: 9 per cent, 1,495 ratings
2%2 stars: 2 per cent, 373 ratings
1%1 stars: 1 per cent, 235 ratings

16,702 ratings · performance and story, as the shop pools them

4.61−0.07 sdAudible
the performanceAudible
the performance, against Audible’s own crowd
72%5 stars: 72 per cent, 9,982 ratings
20%4 stars: 20 per cent, 2,706 ratings
6%3 stars: 6 per cent, 805 ratings
1%2 stars: 1 per cent, 200 ratings
1%1 stars: 1 per cent, 126 ratings

How often this goes badly2.4% 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%.

326 of 13,819 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.

13,819 ratings

4.47−0.25 sdAudible
the story, as heardAudible
the story, as heard, against Audible’s own crowd
65%5 stars: 65 per cent, 8,928 ratings
23%4 stars: 23 per cent, 3,159 ratings
9%3 stars: 9 per cent, 1,198 ratings
2%2 stars: 2 per cent, 322 ratings
1%1 stars: 1 per cent, 188 ratings

13,795 ratings

4.09−0.41 sdGoodreads
the book itselfGoodreads
the book itself, against Goodreads’ own crowd
41%5 stars: 41 per cent, 308,122 ratings
36%4 stars: 36 per cent, 274,290 ratings
17%3 stars: 17 per cent, 125,509 ratings
4%2 stars: 4 per cent, 31,212 ratings
2%1 stars: 2 per cent, 16,902 ratings

756,035 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.

  • Scott Brickour pick14h 27m11h 34m9h 38m8h 15m7h 14m · One voice · Audible UK and US

    Performance 4.61 · Story 4.47 · 13,795 rated the reading · 2.4% 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
14h 27m at 1×
Read by
Scott Brick
Kind
One voice
ASIN
B004FTV6KK · Audible UK
Rated in
Audible UK and US · 851 + 12,968 ratings of the performance
Judged on
13,795 ratings of the narration
Published
Random House Audio · 2006

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 14h 27m, 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.