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Life of Pi

Yann Martel · read by Sanjeev Bhaskar

It tells a story. Hardcover files this book as fiction, and its readers there call it reflective. Facts, not factors: neither plays any part in our call.

Listen to 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 top 30% 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.Life of Pi
close call · 0.29 clear of the line where this would stop being a listen

Sanjeev Bhaskar’s reading is what wins it: it lands in the top 10% of our shelf of books, on 1,159 ratings of the narration, which is a lot of credit for a voice. The book itself is no pushover in audio, so give it your attention rather than the washing-up; the reading earns it.

Length does not decide this

11h 36m to listen, at 1×9h 17m to listen, at 1.25×7h 44m to listen, at 1.5×6h 38m to listen, at 1.75×5h 48m to listen, at 2×about 15 hours to readabout 12 hours to readabout 9 hours to readabout 7 hours to readabout 6 hours to read

The runtime is Audible’s own, shown at the speed beside it. The reading time is our estimate: 460 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: 460 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: 460 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: 460 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: 460 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.

Fiction · 176

About as much work in audio as most of the fiction 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−0.04
In your ears−0.02
Audio disadvantage0.12

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 reads at about the pace of most books we hold and about as demanding as most, and neither is pushing it far from the middle of the shelf.
This one reads at about the pace of most books we hold and about as demanding as most, and neither is pushing it far from the middle of the shelf.

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
0.69It sits in the top 30% of our shelf of books for how far the recording outruns the page. Past the line where we start backing the recording.
Narration payoff
0.81Sanjeev Bhaskar’s reading is better received than the book it came from: in the top 10% of our shelf of books, on 1,159 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 top 10% 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 1.62. 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
−0.69It 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 1,788,048 Goodreads ratings and 1,692 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
  • 1,159 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
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 reading1,159 people have rated this reading: as good as it getsThe second sourceHardcover knows this book, with 1,692 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 1.8 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.

4.57·Audible
overallAudible
overall, pooled by the shop, so we hold no ruler for it
71%5 stars: 71 per cent, 928 ratings
20%4 stars: 20 per cent, 257 ratings
7%3 stars: 7 per cent, 90 ratings
2%2 stars: 2 per cent, 27 ratings
1%1 stars: 1 per cent, 13 ratings

1,315 ratings · performance and story, as the shop pools them

4.76+0.59 sdAudible
the performanceAudible
the performance, against Audible’s own crowd
82%5 stars: 82 per cent, 947 ratings
14%4 stars: 14 per cent, 164 ratings
3%3 stars: 3 per cent, 35 ratings
1%2 stars: 1 per cent, 7 ratings
1%1 stars: 1 per cent, 6 ratings

How often this goes badly1.1% 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%.

13 of 1,159 listeners gave the performance one or two stars

The shape of the room

  • United, this one
  • Warm
  • Split
  • Lukewarm

A united room: 82% of the listeners gave the performance five stars. A room that agrees this far leaves little to gamble on.

1,159 ratings

4.54+0.01 sdAudible
the story, as heardAudible
the story, as heard, against Audible’s own crowd
70%5 stars: 70 per cent, 815 ratings
18%4 stars: 18 per cent, 213 ratings
8%3 stars: 8 per cent, 91 ratings
2%2 stars: 2 per cent, 28 ratings
1%1 stars: 1 per cent, 14 ratings

1,161 ratings

3.95−1.03 sdGoodreads
the book itselfGoodreads
the book itself, against Goodreads’ own crowd
36%5 stars: 36 per cent, 639,784 ratings
35%4 stars: 35 per cent, 633,699 ratings
19%3 stars: 19 per cent, 347,664 ratings
6%2 stars: 6 per cent, 110,504 ratings
3%1 stars: 3 per cent, 56,397 ratings

1,788,048 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.

  • Sanjeev Bhaskarour pick11h 36m9h 17m7h 44m6h 38m5h 48m · One voice · Audible UK and US

    Performance 4.76 · Story 4.54 · 1,159 rated the reading · 1.1% 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
11h 36m at 1×
Read by
Sanjeev Bhaskar
Kind
One voice
ASIN
B0711FJZK5 · Audible UK
Rated in
Audible UK and US · 1,028 + 131 ratings of the performance
Judged on
1,159 ratings of the narration
Published
Canongate Books · 2017

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 11h 36m, 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.