science audiobook
A Short History of Nearly Everything by Bill Bryson is about 18 hours long at normal speed. At 1.5× that drops to about 12 hr, and at 2× to about 9 hr.
Runtimes are approximate and vary slightly by edition and retailer. Check the length shown in Audible, Libby, Spotify or Apple Books for your copy.
| Playback speed | Total time |
|---|---|
| 0.8× | 22 hr 30 min |
| 1× | 18 hr |
| 1.25× | 14 hr 24 min |
| 1.5× | 12 hr |
| 1.75× | 10 hr 17 min |
| 2× | 9 hr |
| 2.5× | 7 hr 12 min |
| 3× | 6 hr |
Plan your listen
At one hour a day and normal speed, you'll finish in about 18 days. Speed it up to 1.5× and the same hour a day finishes it in about 12 days. At 45 minutes a day and 1.5×, plan on about 16 days.
The table below shows whole days needed for every combination of speed and daily listening time.
| Speed | 15 min | 30 min | 45 min | 1 hr | 1.5 hr | 2 hr |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1× | 72 | 36 | 24 | 18 | 12 | 9 |
| 1.25× | 58 | 29 | 20 | 15 | 10 | 8 |
| 1.5× | 48 | 24 | 16 | 12 | 8 | 6 |
| 2× | 36 | 18 | 12 | 9 | 6 | 5 |
How long, really
At 18 hr, A Short History of Nearly Everything is about the length of a drive from Chicago to Washington, D.C. and back. That's longer than about 79% of the 169 popular audiobooks we list.
Spoken at an average narration pace, A Short History of Nearly Everything comes to roughly 167,000 words. Narrators vary, so a faster or slower reader will shift that number and the total runtime.
Want to try other speeds or your own schedule? Use the audiobook speed calculator or the listening goal calculator to find the daily minutes you need.
Track it as you listen
Booktrace is an iPhone audiobook tracker that logs your sessions, chapters, narrator and playback speed in one place, so you can see real progress through A Short History of Nearly Everything and how many hours remain, whichever app you listen in.
Common questions
The A Short History of Nearly Everything audiobook by Bill Bryson runs about 18 hours at normal (1x) speed. Exact runtime can differ by a few minutes between editions and stores.
At 1.5x speed, A Short History of Nearly Everything takes about 12 hours. At 2x it takes about 9 hours.
At one hour a day and normal speed, A Short History of Nearly Everything takes about 18 days. At 1.5x speed and an hour a day it takes about 12 days. At 30 minutes a day and normal speed it takes about 36 days.
Compared with the 169 popular audiobooks on this site, A Short History of Nearly Everything is longer than about 79% of them. At 18 hr it is about the length of a drive from Chicago to Washington, D.C. and back.
