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The Yellow Wallpaper

Charlotte Perkins Gilman · read by Cynthia Erivo

It tells a story. Hardcover files this book as fiction, and its readers there call it dark, mysterious and tense. 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 1% 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 Yellow Wallpaper
emphatic · 3.23 clear of the line where this would stop being a listen

Audio has the easy job on this one: 59 readers call it fast and only 3% of the reviews we read called it demanding, so nothing in it needs a page you can flick back through. Cynthia Erivo’s reading is well liked too (in the top 6% of our shelf of books, on 1,841 ratings of the narration).

Length does not decide this

41 min to listen, at 1×33 min to listen, at 1.25×27 min to listen, at 1.5×23 min to listen, at 1.75×21 min to listen, at 2×about 2 hours to readabout 1½ hours to readabout 1½ hours to readabout 1 hour to readabout 1 hour to read

The runtime is Audible’s own, shown at the speed beside it. The reading time is our estimate: 63 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 0.7 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: 63 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 0.7 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: 63 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 0.7 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: 63 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 0.7 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: 63 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 0.7 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

Easier in audio than The Little Prince.

All the books we hold · 222

Easier to hear than 100% of the books we hold.

Fiction · 176

Easier to hear than 99% of the fiction we hold.

Short books · 57

Easier to hear than 100% of the short 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 bottom 3% of our shelf of books for effort on the page and in the bottom 1% 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 below that line (the page asks more of you here than audio does), in the bottom 1% of our shelf of books for extra work in audio.
On the page−1.01
In your ears−2.13
Audio disadvantage−2.71

Where that puts this one among the books we hold: in the bottom 3% of our shelf of books for effort on the page and in the bottom 1% 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 faster than most books we hold and easier going than most, which is what leaves the format leaning towards the recording.
This one reads faster than most books we hold and easier going than most, which is what leaves the format leaning towards the recording.

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
3.63It sits in the top 1% of our shelf of books for how far the recording outruns the page. Past the line where we start backing the recording.
Narration payoff
0.92Cynthia Erivo’s reading is better received than the book it came from: in the top 6% of our shelf of books, on 1,841 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 0.06. 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
−0.45It 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 387,370 Goodreads ratings and 817 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
  • An easy listen anyway
  • 1,841 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 reading1,841 people have rated this reading: as good as it getsThe second sourceHardcover knows this book, with 817 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 33 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.

4.16·Audible
overallAudible
overall, pooled by the shop, so we hold no ruler for it
56%5 stars: 56 per cent, 1,164 ratings
21%4 stars: 21 per cent, 440 ratings
11%3 stars: 11 per cent, 234 ratings
6%2 stars: 6 per cent, 115 ratings
6%1 stars: 6 per cent, 123 ratings

2,076 ratings · performance and story, as the shop pools them

4.51−0.48 sdAudible
the performanceAudible
the performance, against Audible’s own crowd
71%5 stars: 71 per cent, 1,306 ratings
18%4 stars: 18 per cent, 326 ratings
7%3 stars: 7 per cent, 125 ratings
2%2 stars: 2 per cent, 41 ratings
3%1 stars: 3 per cent, 51 ratings

How often this goes badly5.0% 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%.

92 of 1,849 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.

1,849 ratings

4.11−1.71 sdAudible
the story, as heardAudible
the story, as heard, against Audible’s own crowd
56%5 stars: 56 per cent, 1,026 ratings
20%4 stars: 20 per cent, 370 ratings
11%3 stars: 11 per cent, 201 ratings
6%2 stars: 6 per cent, 109 ratings
7%1 stars: 7 per cent, 135 ratings

1,841 ratings

4.06−0.54 sdGoodreads
the book itselfGoodreads
the book itself, against Goodreads’ own crowd
37%5 stars: 37 per cent, 141,544 ratings
39%4 stars: 39 per cent, 152,746 ratings
19%3 stars: 19 per cent, 73,249 ratings
4%2 stars: 4 per cent, 15,319 ratings
1%1 stars: 1 per cent, 4,512 ratings

387,370 ratings

Every reading we hold

6 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.

  • Cynthia Erivoour pick41 min33 min27 min23 min21 min · One voice · Audible UK and US

    Performance 4.51 · Story 4.11 · 1,841 rated the reading · 5.0% 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

  • Jo Myddletontoo few ratings to judge35 min28 min23 min20 min18 min · One voice · Audible UK

    Only 142 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

  • B. J. Harrisontoo few ratings to judge40 min32 min27 min23 min20 min · One voice · Audible UK

    Only 4 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

  • Katherine Fentontoo few ratings to judge46 min37 min31 min26 min23 min · One voice · Audible UK

    Nobody has rated this one in either shop, so we have nothing to go on.

    Hear it · Audible’s clip, its length read from them on load

  • Saethon Williamstoo few ratings to judge37 min30 min25 min21 min19 min · One voice · Audible UK

    Nobody has rated this one in either shop, so we have nothing to go on.

    Hear it · Audible’s clip, its length read from them on load

  • John Linguatoo few ratings to judge39 min31 min26 min22 min20 min · One voice · Audible UK

    Nobody has rated this one in either shop, so we have nothing to go on.

    Hear it · Audible’s clip, its length read from them on load

The recording we mean

Runtime
41 min at 1×
Read by
Cynthia Erivo
Kind
One voice
ASIN
B0B431Q8HH · Audible UK
Rated in
Audible UK and US · 732 + 1,117 ratings of the performance
Judged on
1,841 ratings of the narration
Published
Audible Studios · 2022

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 41 min, 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.