The word bit is a contraction of binary digit that was coined by the statistician John Tukey in the mid 1940s.
C is not a big language, and it is not well served by a big book.
Nevertheless, C retains the basic philosophy that programmers know what they are doing; it only requires that they state their intentions explicitly.
First is the sheer joy of making things. Second is the pleasure of making things that are useful to other people. Deep within, we want others to use our work and to find it helpful.