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Work · two recordings

Steppenwolf

Hermann Hesse · read by Peter Weller

It tells a story. Hardcover files this book as fiction, and its readers there call it challenging and reflective. 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 14% 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.Steppenwolf
ordinary · 0.79 clear of the line where this would stop being a read

Audio is doing this one no favours: 15 readers call it slow and 12% of the reviews we read called it demanding. That is a book that wants a page you can turn back to.

Length does not decide this

7h 41m to listen, at 1×6h 09m to listen, at 1.25×5h 07m to listen, at 1.5×4h 23m to listen, at 1.75×3h 51m to listen, at 2×about 9 hours to readabout 6 hours to readabout 5 hours to readabout 4 hours to readabout 3 hours to read

The runtime is Audible’s own, shown at the speed beside it. The reading time is our estimate: 256 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: 256 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: 256 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: 256 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: 256 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 82% of the books we hold.

Fiction · 176

Harder work in audio than 81% of the fiction we hold.

Middling-length books · 55

Harder work in audio than 85% 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 top 23% of our shelf of books for effort on the page and in the top 20% 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 17% of our shelf of books for extra work in audio.
On the page0.42
In your ears0.73
Audio disadvantage0.85

Where that puts this one among the books we hold: in the top 23% of our shelf of books for effort on the page and in the top 20% 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 reads at about the pace of most books we hold and about as demanding as most, which is what leaves the format leaning towards the page.
This one reads at about the pace of 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
−1.19It sits in the bottom 14% of our shelf of books for how far the recording outruns the page. Past the line where we start backing the page.
Narration payoff
−0.35Peter Weller’s reading is less well received than the book it came from: in the bottom 20% of our shelf of books, on 1,574 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 −0.88. 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
−0.27It 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 226,832 Goodreads ratings and 466 on Hardcover, each scored inside its own population first, and never added together.

For the page

  • The voice lets the book down
  • 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

  • 1,574 listeners behind it

So the case for the page won it.

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 reading1,574 people have rated this reading: as good as it getsThe second sourceHardcover knows this book, with 466 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 12 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.

4.15·Audible
overallAudible
overall, pooled by the shop, so we hold no ruler for it
53%5 stars: 53 per cent, 1,035 ratings
23%4 stars: 23 per cent, 441 ratings
14%3 stars: 14 per cent, 277 ratings
5%2 stars: 5 per cent, 104 ratings
5%1 stars: 5 per cent, 89 ratings

1,946 ratings · performance and story, as the shop pools them

4.37−1.11 sdAudible
the performanceAudible
the performance, against Audible’s own crowd
61%5 stars: 61 per cent, 963 ratings
23%4 stars: 23 per cent, 357 ratings
10%3 stars: 10 per cent, 158 ratings
4%2 stars: 4 per cent, 58 ratings
2%1 stars: 2 per cent, 38 ratings

How often this goes badly6.1% 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%.

96 of 1,574 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.

1,574 ratings

4.20−1.33 sdAudible
the story, as heardAudible
the story, as heard, against Audible’s own crowd
56%5 stars: 56 per cent, 885 ratings
21%4 stars: 21 per cent, 335 ratings
13%3 stars: 13 per cent, 211 ratings
5%2 stars: 5 per cent, 76 ratings
4%1 stars: 4 per cent, 67 ratings

1,574 ratings

4.13−0.23 sdGoodreads
the book itselfGoodreads
the book itself, against Goodreads’ own crowd
43%5 stars: 43 per cent, 96,614 ratings
35%4 stars: 35 per cent, 78,601 ratings
17%3 stars: 17 per cent, 38,298 ratings
4%2 stars: 4 per cent, 10,190 ratings
1%1 stars: 1 per cent, 3,129 ratings

226,832 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.

  • Peter Wellerour pick7h 41m6h 09m5h 07m4h 23m3h 51m · One voice · Audible UK and US

    Performance 4.37 · Story 4.20 · 1,574 rated the reading · 6.1% 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

  • John Sackvilletoo few ratings to judge7h 57m6h 22m5h 18m4h 33m3h 59m · One voice · Audible UK

    Only 6 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

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 41m at 1×
Read by
Peter Weller
Kind
One voice
ASIN
B004EVJP02 · Audible UK
Rated in
Audible UK and US · 245 + 1,329 ratings of the performance
Judged on
1,574 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 7h 41m, 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.