Once upon a time vs The Left Hand of Darkness: Which Should You Read?
Both live on shelves: Fiction
Once upon a time
Excerpt: ?I do not claim to be an authority on either the history or the practice of chess, but, as the poet Gray observed when he saw his old school from a long way off, it is sometimes an advantage not to know too…
vs
The Left Hand of Darkness
[Comment by Kim Stanley Robinson, on The Guardian's website][1]: The Left Hand of Darkness by Ursula K Le Guin (1969) One of my favorite novels is The Left Hand of Darkness, by Ursula K Le Guin. For more than 40 years…
The verdict
- Readers rate The Left Hand of Darkness highest: The Left Hand of Darkness 4.4 · Once upon a time 3.7.
- The Left Hand of Darkness has the widest readership — 576 ratings behind its score.
- The Left Hand of Darkness runs the darker storyline; Once upon a time stays the lighter read.
How to choose
Scores by source
| Once upon a time | The Left Hand of Darkness | |
|---|---|---|
| Goodreads | — | 4.3 (262) |
| Hardcover | 3.6 (73) | 3.0 (2) |
| Apple Books | — | 4.5 (576) |
Reception
| Once upon a time | The Left Hand of Darkness | |
|---|---|---|
| Ratings | 73 | 576 |
| Editions | 42 | 91 |
| Film adaptations | 1 | 1 |
| Want to read | — | 502 |
| Reading it now | — | 15 |
| Written reviews | — | 27 |
| Wikipedia attention | 376 | 34258 |
| Pages | 418 | 329 |