How long does it take to read In the Beginning...Was the Command Line?
In the Beginning...Was the Command Line by Neal Stephenson takes about 2 hours 55 minutes to read at 250 words a minute.
About 2 hours 55 minutes
An evening's read
First published 1999. 159 pages, about 43,725 words.
6 days at 30 minutes a day
Estimate based on 275 words per page.
At other speeds
| Slow, 150 words a minute | 4 hours 52 minutes |
| Average, 250 words a minute | 2 hours 55 minutes |
| Fast, 400 words a minute | 1 hour 49 minutes |
The page count is the median across 10 editions, so your copy may differ. How we calculate.
About the book
This is "the Word" -- one man's word, certainly -- about the art (and artifice) of the state of our computer-centric existence. And considering that the "one man" is Neal Stephenson, "the hacker Hemingway" (Newsweek) -- acclaimed novelist, pragmatist, seer, nerd-friendly philosopher, and nationally bestselling author of groundbreaking literary works (Snow Crash, Cryptonomicon, etc., etc.) -- the word is well worth hearing. Mostly well-reasoned examination and partial rant, Stephenson's In the Beginning...was the Command Line is a thoughtful, irreverent, hilarious treatise on the cyber-culture past and present; on operating system tyrannies and downloaded popular revolutions; on the Internet, Disney World, Big Bangs, not to mention the meaning of life itself.
Subjects: Computer Technology, Nonfiction, Operating systems (Computers), Humor, form, essays, American wit and humor, science, Long Now Manual for Civilization
