How long does it take to read Close to the Machine?
Close to the Machine by Ellen Ullman takes about 3 hours 28 minutes to read at 250 words a minute.
About 3 hours 28 minutes
A weekend read
First published 1997. 189 pages, about 51,975 words.
7 days at 30 minutes a day
Estimate based on 275 words per page.
At other speeds
| Slow, 150 words a minute | 5 hours 47 minutes |
| Average, 250 words a minute | 3 hours 28 minutes |
| Fast, 400 words a minute | 2 hours 10 minutes |
The page count is the median across 6 editions, so your copy may differ. How we calculate.
About the book
Here is a candid account of the life of a software engineer who runs her own computer consulting business out of a live-work loft in San Francisco's Multimedia Gulch. Immersed in the abstract world of information, algorithms, and networks, she would like to give in to the seductions of the programmer's world, where "weird logic dreamers" like herself live "close to the machine." Still, she is keenly aware that body and soul are not mechanical: desire, love, and the need to communicate face to face don't easily fit into lines of code or clicks in a Web browser. At every turn, she finds she cannot ignore the social and philosophical repercussions of her work. As Ullman sees it, the cool world of cyberculture is neither the death of civilization nor its salvation - it is the vulnerable creation of people who are not so sure of just where they're taking us all.
Subjects: Biography, Computer programmers, Computerprogrammeurs, Software, Ullman, Ellen, Computer programmers -- Biography
