The hanging tree vs The Left Hand of Darkness: Which Should You Read?
Both live on shelves: Fiction
The hanging tree
Dorothy M. Johnson wrote dozens of highly acclaimed western stories and books in her long career. The stories in this book are her very best. They were ranked as four of the top five stories of the 20th century by the…
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 · The hanging tree 4.2.
- The hanging tree has the widest readership — 577 ratings behind its score.
- The Left Hand of Darkness runs the darker storyline; The hanging tree stays the lighter read.
How to choose
Scores by source
| The hanging tree | The Left Hand of Darkness | |
|---|---|---|
| Goodreads | 4.2 (577) | 4.3 (262) |
| Hardcover | 3.5 (1) | 3.0 (2) |
| Apple Books | — | 4.5 (576) |
Reception
| The hanging tree | The Left Hand of Darkness | |
|---|---|---|
| Ratings | 577 | 576 |
| Editions | 9 | 91 |
| Film adaptations | 1 | 1 |
| Want to read | 322 | 502 |
| Reading it now | 8 | 15 |
| Written reviews | 55 | 27 |
| Wikipedia attention | 189 | 34258 |
| Pages | 272 | 329 |