The Little Prince
It tells a story. Hardcover files this book as fiction, and its readers there call it inspiring and reflective. Facts, not factors: neither plays any part in our call.
Listen to it
Audio has the easy job on this one: 53 readers call it fast and only 4% of the reviews we read called it demanding, so nothing in it needs a page you can flick back through. The recording and the book are received about equally well: Humphrey Bower’s reading sits in the middle 40% of our shelf of books, on 4,170 ratings of the narration. So the format is doing all the work here.
Length does not decide this
1h 59m to listen, at 1×1h 35m to listen, at 1.25×1h 19m to listen, at 1.5×1h 08m to listen, at 1.75×1h 00m to listen, at 2×about 3 hours to readabout 2½ hours to readabout 2 hours to readabout 1½ hours to readabout 1 hour to read
The runtime is Audible’s own, shown at the speed beside it. The reading time is our estimate: 96 pages at 30 pages an hour, the pace you told us. Ours is 50, about 300 words a page, read at 250 a minute. Treat the reading estimate as a ceiling on this one: this one runs 1.2 minutes of narration a page against a shelf median of 1.9, so its pages are lighter than the average we divide by (verse, dialogue, wide margins), and it will go quicker than we say.The runtime is Audible’s own, shown at the speed beside it. The reading time is our estimate: 96 pages at 40 pages an hour, the pace you told us. Ours is 50, about 300 words a page, read at 250 a minute. Treat the reading estimate as a ceiling on this one: this one runs 1.2 minutes of narration a page against a shelf median of 1.9, so its pages are lighter than the average we divide by (verse, dialogue, wide margins), and it will go quicker than we say.The runtime is Audible’s own, shown at the speed beside it. The reading time is our estimate: 96 pages at 50 pages an hour, which is about 300 words a page, read at 250 a minute. Treat the reading estimate as a ceiling on this one: this one runs 1.2 minutes of narration a page against a shelf median of 1.9, so its pages are lighter than the average we divide by (verse, dialogue, wide margins), and it will go quicker than we say.The runtime is Audible’s own, shown at the speed beside it. The reading time is our estimate: 96 pages at 65 pages an hour, the pace you told us. Ours is 50, about 300 words a page, read at 250 a minute. Treat the reading estimate as a ceiling on this one: this one runs 1.2 minutes of narration a page against a shelf median of 1.9, so its pages are lighter than the average we divide by (verse, dialogue, wide margins), and it will go quicker than we say.The runtime is Audible’s own, shown at the speed beside it. The reading time is our estimate: 96 pages at 80 pages an hour, the pace you told us. Ours is 50, about 300 words a page, read at 250 a minute. Treat the reading estimate as a ceiling on this one: this one runs 1.2 minutes of narration a page against a shelf median of 1.9, so its pages are lighter than the average we divide by (verse, dialogue, wide margins), and it will go quicker than we say.
Slot → chore-safe
This is the book we measure the others in this slot against. It sits about in the middle of the band.
Easier to hear than 94% of the books we hold.
Easier to hear than 93% of the fiction we hold.
Easier to hear than 93% of the short 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 5% 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
- 1.69It sits in the top 8% of our shelf of books for how far the recording outruns the page. Past the line where we start backing the recording.
- Narration payoff
- 0.03Humphrey Bower’s reading and the book are received about equally well: in the middle 40% of our shelf of books, on 4,170 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 4.68 for the performance beside 4.63 for the story is not the level pair it looks. Against their own crowds they are +0.27 and +0.38, 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 −0.44. 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
- 0.67It sits in the top 27% of our shelf of books for how well the print crowds think of a book: well enough regarded that a wasted first encounter costs more, so we lean towards protecting the page. Blended across 2,608,059 Goodreads ratings and 3,252 on Hardcover, each scored inside its own population first, and never added together.
For the page
- The print crowds think highly of it
For the recording
- The voice and the book are received about level
- An easy listen anyway
- 4,170 listeners behind it
So the case for the recording won it clearly.
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 reading4,170 people have rated this reading: as good as it getsThe second sourceHardcover knows this book, with 3,252 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.
Neither crowd brings any of the three up more often than its own crowd usually does. Whatever this book asks of you, its listeners are not saying the format is what makes it hard.
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
4,951 ratings · performance and story, as the shop pools them
the performanceAudible
the performance, against Audible’s own crowd
How often this goes badly2.0% 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%.
82 of 4,170 listeners gave the performance one or two stars
The shape of the room
- United, this one
- Warm
- Split
- Lukewarm
A united room: 77% of the listeners gave the performance five stars. A room that agrees this far leaves little to gamble on.
4,170 ratings
the story, as heardAudible
the story, as heard, against Audible’s own crowd
4,177 ratings
the book itselfGoodreads
the book itself, against Goodreads’ own crowd
2,608,059 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.
- Humphrey Bowerour pick1h 59m1h 35m1h 19m1h 08m1h 00m · One voice · Audible UK and US
Performance 4.68 · Story 4.63 · 4,170 rated the reading · 2.0% 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
- Ossian Perrettoo few ratings to judge2h 00m1h 36m1h 20m1h 09m1h 00m · 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
- Stephanie Richardsontoo few ratings to judge2h 04m1h 39m1h 23m1h 11m1h 02m · One voice · Audible UK
One person has 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
- Elizabeth Ruelastoo few ratings to judge1h 46m1h 25m1h 11m1h 01m53 min · One voice · Audible UK
Only 49 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
2 other listings we set aside, listed with the reason for eacheach one is sold as this book and is not a complete reading of it
- Richard Gere44 min35 min29 min25 min22 min · 9 ratingsAbridged: it runs 37% of the full reading
- Richard Burton1h 00m48 min40 min34 min30 min · 3 ratingsNot the whole book, only 50% of the full reading
The recording we mean
- Runtime
- 1h 59m at 1×
- Read by
- Humphrey Bower
- Kind
- One voice
- ASIN
- B004EVXRRO · Audible UK
- Rated in
- Audible UK and US · 406 + 3,764 ratings of the performance
- Judged on
- 4,170 ratings of the narration
- Published
- Bolinda Publishing Pty Ltd · 2009
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 1h 59m, 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.