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Work · two recordings

The Diary of a Young Girl

Anne Frank · read by Helena Bonham Carter

It explains. Hardcover files this book as non-fiction, and its readers there call it sad, reflective and emotional. 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 23% 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.The Diary of a Young Girl
close call · 0.21 clear of the line where this would stop being a read

Audio is doing this one no favours: 15 readers call it slow and 13% 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

10h 08m to listen, at 1×8h 06m to listen, at 1.25×6h 45m to listen, at 1.5×5h 47m to listen, at 1.75×5h 04m to listen, at 2×about 9 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: 283 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: 283 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: 283 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: 283 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: 283 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 85% of the books we hold.

Non-fiction · 27

Harder work in audio than 78% of the non-fiction we hold.

Middling-length books · 55

Harder work in audio than 89% 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 and To Kill a Mockingbird. This one is in the top 19% of our shelf of books for effort on the page and in the top 16% 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 14% of our shelf of books for extra work in audio.
On the page0.52
In your ears0.90
Audio disadvantage1.00

Where that puts this one among the books we hold: in the top 19% of our shelf of books for effort on the page and in the top 16% 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 and To Kill a Mockingbird. This one reads at about the pace of most books we hold and more demanding than most, which is what leaves the format leaning towards the page.
This one reads at about the pace of most books we hold and more demanding than 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
−0.61It sits in the bottom 23% of our shelf of books for how far the recording outruns the page. Past the line where we start backing the page.
Narration payoff
0.39Helena Bonham Carter’s reading and the book are received about equally well: in the middle 40% of our shelf of books, on 2,562 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 4.86 for the performance beside 4.83 for the story is not the level pair it looks. Against their own crowds they are +1.03 and +1.18, 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 0.95. 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 4,331,992 Goodreads ratings and 2,208 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
  • 2,562 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 reading2,562 people have rated this reading: as good as it getsThe second sourceHardcover knows this book, with 2,208 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 22 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.

4.80·Audible
overallAudible
overall, pooled by the shop, so we hold no ruler for it
86%5 stars: 86 per cent, 2,506 ratings
10%4 stars: 10 per cent, 280 ratings
3%3 stars: 3 per cent, 73 ratings
1%2 stars: 1 per cent, 20 ratings
1%1 stars: 1 per cent, 20 ratings

2,899 ratings · performance and story, as the shop pools them

4.86+1.03 sdAudible
the performanceAudible
the performance, against Audible’s own crowd
90%5 stars: 90 per cent, 2,319 ratings
7%4 stars: 7 per cent, 187 ratings
2%3 stars: 2 per cent, 46 ratings
1%2 stars: 1 per cent, 15 ratings
0%1 stars: 0 per cent, 7 ratings

How often this goes badly0.9% of the people who rated the performance gave it one or two stars. Fewer than most recordings here. The middle of our shelf is 2.0%, and half of it falls between 1.0% and 3.1%.

22 of 2,574 listeners gave the performance one or two stars

The shape of the room

  • United, this one
  • Warm
  • Split
  • Lukewarm

A united room: 90% of the listeners gave the performance five stars. A room that agrees this far leaves little to gamble on.

2,574 ratings

4.83+1.18 sdAudible
the story, as heardAudible
the story, as heard, against Audible’s own crowd
88%5 stars: 88 per cent, 2,260 ratings
8%4 stars: 8 per cent, 213 ratings
2%3 stars: 2 per cent, 59 ratings
1%2 stars: 1 per cent, 16 ratings
1%1 stars: 1 per cent, 14 ratings

2,562 ratings

4.20+0.08 sdGoodreads
the book itselfGoodreads
the book itself, against Goodreads’ own crowd
49%5 stars: 49 per cent, 2,136,604 ratings
30%4 stars: 30 per cent, 1,301,285 ratings
15%3 stars: 15 per cent, 635,099 ratings
4%2 stars: 4 per cent, 162,128 ratings
2%1 stars: 2 per cent, 96,876 ratings

4,331,992 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.

  • Helena Bonham Carterour pick10h 08m8h 06m6h 45m5h 47m5h 04m · One voice · Audible UK and US

    Performance 4.86 · Story 4.83 · 2,562 rated the reading · 0.9% 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

  • Susan Adamstoo few ratings to judge8h 56m7h 09m5h 57m5h 06m4h 28m · One voice · Audible UK

    Only 40 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

Helena Bonham Carter’s reading is in our Hall of Fame, and the figures that earned it are all on that page.

The recording we mean

Runtime
10h 08m at 1×
Read by
Helena Bonham Carter
Kind
One voice
ASIN
B0052UXOBU · Audible UK
Rated in
Audible UK and US · 2,426 + 148 ratings of the performance
Judged on
2,562 ratings of the narration
Published
Penguin · 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 10h 08m, 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.