Johannes Schult

Apparently, the amount of ratings on GoodReads.com is highly correlated with the ratings, at least for John Green’s four novels (r = .96). But is it really ‘the more, the merrier’? I picked four more authors (in a non-random fashion), had a look at the respective correlations for their novels, and made a couple of graphs to illustrate the results.

Novels by John Green, Maureen Johnson, J.K. Rowling, and Stephanie Meyer

The relationship is a negative one for Stephanie Meyer’s books. Two books of J.K. Rowling are outliers – her first one in terms of ratings on GoodReads, her most recent one in terms of rating. I therefore took the liberty to plot a quadratic fit (instead of a linear fit). It appears that John Green might be an exception (like the Mongols?) Also, Amazon.com ratings tend to be higher; and again, there is no clear relationship between the amount of reviews and the average rating.

And since I recently finished reading “On Chesil Beach”, here’s the data for Ian McEwan’s novels, along with a more appropriately scaled plot for Maureen Johnson’s books:

Novels by Maureen Johnson and Ian McEwan

By the way, the correlation between Amazon.com ratings and GoodReads.com ratings for the 40 books I used above is r = .89. The correlation between number of Amazon.com reviews and Goodreads.com ratings is r = .75.

PS: If anyone is interested in the Stata code for the graphs, let me know. I guess, I’ll add it here this weekend, anyway, but right now I should go to bed.

fishingboatproceeds

[…] The same is true on amazon, where the book’s average rating has actually gone up a bit in the past six months (although not in a statistically significant way). […]

Actually, the ratings have decreased in a statistically significant way (alpha < .05). I used the two most recently archived pages from archive.org, which do not cover exactly 6 months. Still, ratings before 2013-02-03 were higher than those after that date.

• Before (2110 ratings): mean = 4.76 (SD = 0.014)
• After (1232 ratings): mean = 4.67 (SD = 0.021)

A t-test (two-sided, unequal variances) yields p = 0.0009 (d = -0.12); and for the non-parametric fans, the Wilcoxon rank-sum (Mann-Whitney) test yields p = 0.0001.

Using 2012-10-19 as dividing date, yields similar results:

• Before (1051 ratings): mean = 4.77 (SD = 0.020)
• After (2291 ratings): mean = 4.71 (SD = 0.015)

A t-test (two-sided, unequal variances) yields p = 0.0188 (d = -0.09); the Wilcoxon rank-sum test yields p = 0.0008. Of course, significance testing might be a questionable procedure in this case – and also in general.

This is actually a census of all Amazon ratings, so there’s no need to test whether ratings differ. The sample is the population. However, the written reviews could be regarded as a subsample of the ratings of all readers.

Is it a random sample? I don’t think so. So can we draw proper conclusions from the significance test results? Nah. I won’t provide a comprehensive discussion of the benefits and problems associated with the null hypothesis significance testing (NHST). I’ll just name one of my favourite objections, which Cohen (1990, p. 1308) phrased nicely: “The null hypothesis, taken literally (and that’s the only way you can take it in formal hypothesis testing), is always false in the real world.” In the present, the null hypothesis would mean, that average rating of newer readers is exactly the same as the average rating of those who pre-ordered the book etc.

Anyway, the effect size suggests that the drop in ratings is very small, so it should be safe to argue that the book keeps appealing to new readers.

PS: Sorry for nitpicking; this should in no way diminish the article, which I think is highly insightful.

PPS: I spend a good 15 minutes in R trying to beat the data into shape, but I feel much more comfortable in Stata, so I switched and had the analysis in a few minutes. Here’s the do-file in case anyone in curious. (Haha, as if!)

Read the rest of this entry »

Today’s mail contained a copy of “The Bestseller Job” (by Greg Cox), a novel based on the televion series “Leverage“. I really like “Leverage” and I was sad to learn that its 5th season was going to be the last one. I’m not usually into novels that expand existing series, but on a whim I bought this one. I’m 76 pages in right now. (The book has 291 pages.) It is certainly too early for a final verdict. I just thought I’d put down my first impression, which, by the way, is positive. The writing style matches the editing of the television series; the plot fits the Leverage universe perfectly, and I’m thrilled that 3/4 of the story are still ahead of me. I like it when the summary on the back doesn’t spoil the whole first half of a book, so I was pleasantly surprised how fast “The Bestseller Job” took off. I was even more enthralled to find the crew en route to Germany. Heck, we learn that Parker once had an alias from Stuttgart. And it’s not just these nods to the country I live in, it’s the acurate transition from one medium to another that makes me really happy. Okay, back to reading!

Last night I finally saw Cloud Atlas in the cinema. It was a marvelous journey through various stories and times. I think the film makers did an incredible job interweaving the plots and characters.

I loved the novel, so I was a bit skeptical about condensing it all into a single movie. Needless to say, it’s not a verbatim adaptation of the original text. On the contrary, Tykwer and the Wachowskis took audacious liberties, changed most of the endings and left out huge portions. And I’m perfectly happy with that, because they turned the stories into something slightly different, something that fits the big screen wonderfully. My eyes were glued to the screen throughout the movie. There were many innovative ideas that fit the format perfectly. I even enjoyed the way the music was handled, something I hadn’t expected.

Two thumbs up!

The concert was the first of the current tour, so the setlist was a complete surprise to everybody. Once again, Chris de Burgh had compiled a nice mix of old and new tracks. I really like how he brings back different older songs every tour. He also presented a new song, The Fields of Agincourt. It was in the vein of his battle songs with various moods that culminated in a forte ending. The audience was attentive and rather relaxed, especially towards the end. I especially enjoyed the Moonfleet songs and The Ballroom of Romance. The cover songs worked surprisingly well and brightened the atmosphere even further. Brother John felt a bit out of place; and The Mirror of the Soul and Bal Masqué had already been played four years ago at the same place. Anyway, it was a pleasant concert with a solid band performance and De Burgh’s impressive voice.

1. Waiting for the Hurricane
2. The Spirit of Man
3. Up Here in Heaven
4. Missing You
5. The Traveller
6. Ship to Shore
7. The Mirror of the Soul
8. The Same Sun
9. The Escape
10. Greater Love
11. Already There
12. The Fields of Agincourt
13. Tender Hands
14. Living on the Island
15. Love and Time
16. Summer Rain
17. I’m Not Scared Anymore
18. Borderline
19. The Ballroom of Romance
20. The Lady in Red
21. Blue Bayou
22. Let It Be
23. Lady Madonna
24. Long Train Running
25. Africa
26. Brother John
27. Bal Masqué
28. Don’t Pay the Ferryman
29. High on Emotion
30. The Snows of New York
31. The Moonfleet Finale

I’m going to see Chris de Burgh live today in Trier. There’s not really a new album to promote, although I suspect that Footsteps 2 will be featured to a certain degree. Anyway, I just jotted down my dream setlist – simply for fun. I tried to make it somewhat realistic, knowing very well that he won’t play most of the songs. I mean, he just has too many great songs in his back catalogue.

1. The Storyman Theme (Intro)
2. Don’t Pay the Ferryman
3. Waiting for the Hurricane
4. Eastern Wind
5. Lonely Sky
6. In a Country Churchyard
7. We Can Work It Out
8. People of the World
9. The Revolution
10. Light a Fire
11. Liberty
12. Borderline
13. Say Goodbye to It All
14. Love and Time
15. There’s a New Star Up in Heaven Tonight
16. The Lady in Red
17. Africa
18. Timing Is Everything
19. Don’t Look Back
20. The Storm
21. Where Peaceful Waters Flow
22. High on Emotion
23. Read My Name
24. Crusader (Encore 1)
25. Transmission Ends (Encore 2)

Hier klicken!

(Quelle)

A list of books I finished reading in the last 12 months:

• Joseph M. Siracusa: Nuclear Weapons – A Very Short Introduction
• Elisabeth Rank: Und im Zweifel für dich selbst
• Jennifer E. Smith: Die statistische Wahrscheinlichkeit von Liebe auf den ersten Blick
• Dan Brown: Das verlorene Symbol
• Nicholas James: Cancer – A Very Short Introduction
• Andy McNab: Signal Bravo Two Zero
• Suzanne Collins: The Hunger Games
• Suzanne Collins: Catching Fire
• J. Meade Falkner: Moonfleet
• J. K. Rowling: Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban
• Elisabeth Streit: Renates erster Flug
• Elisabeth Streit: Renate als Luft-Stewardeß
• J. K. Rowling: Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows
• Gearóid Ó hAllmhuráin: O’Brien Pocket History of Irish Traditional Music
• Lloyd Alexander: Der Setzerjunge
• Justin Cronin: The Passage
• Kai Bird & Martin J. Sherwin: J. Robert Oppenheimer
• Kevin Brockmeier: The Short History of the Dead
• John Green: Das Schicksal ist ein mieser Verräter
• Ian McEwan: Solar
• Flavia Company: Die Insel der letzten Wahrheit
• Susanne Schäpler: Schwarzes Blut
• Shania Twain: From This Moment on
• John Green: Paper Towns
• Frank Portman: King Dork
• Arthur C. Doyle: A Study in Scarlet
• Ildiko von Kürthy: Unter dem Herzen
• Arthur C. Doyle: The Sign of Four
• Laurie R. King: The Beekeeper’s Apprentice

This song is part of Edric Haleen’s Songwriting Cycle #3. I like the challenges Spencer Sokol gave me. I don’t like how I struggled to create a proper story. At some point I had this glorious idea of the first verse being as it is, but then the couple ends up at his brother’s house, only to find that his brother, who had wanted to go to the beach, did end up at Grandma’s place. The final verse saw Grandma happy at the beach. Anyway, I ran out of time and ideas. There was no brilliant insight at the eleventh hour, so I present you this littly ditty. Unfortunately, I haven’t yet found the time to listen to the other entries, but I’m sure they’re far better than mine!

Yesterday we took our car to drive to grandma’s house
I sat behind the steering wheel right next to my spouse

She was really confident we didn’t need a map
But I had just installed a new direction finding app
So five miles down the dusty road
My smart phone said: “turn right”
My wife protested: “no, no, no
Turn left by the traffic light”
I didn’t know just what to do
So I kept driving straight ahead
My phone said: “calculating new route”
While my wife was getting mad

After three such incidents things getting tense
My phone said we were getting there, ignoring some dead ends
But ten miles down the dusty road
It said: “please turn around”
My wife protested: “no, no, no
We should be westward bound”
I didn’t know just what to do
So I kept driving straight ahead
My phone said: “calculating new route”
While my wife was getting mad
My wife was getting mad

“Unquestionably the funniest song you will ever hear about THE FAULT IN OUR STARS.” –John Green

This ain’t a book about a ballet dancer
No, it’s a book about a book about cancer
But there is something that is more important
This book mentions Natalie Portman
In 3 out of 25 chapters – I think she’s pretty scarce
That’s the fault in “The Fault in Our Stars”
Yeah that’s the fault in “The Fault in Our Stars”

If you do the math then you will see
22 chapters without Natalie
The ones that mention her are way too short, man!
John Green should have added way more Portman
It wouldn’t have been as difficult as landing a rover on Mars
That’s the fault in “The Fault in Our Stars”
Yeah that’s the fault in “The Fault in Our Stars”

At least the book doesn’t end in the middle of

Read the rest of this entry »