"Empire of the Sum" by Keith Houston

[primeideal]

• The subtitle of the book suggests that it will be about pocket calculators. Actually "the world's first pocket calculator" appears on page 201 of 278 (excluding endnotes). The scope of the book is much broader, in terms of "tools people use to help them calculate," from the abacus through spreadsheet applications.
• The writing style is kind of tangential, not in a pretentious "let me show you my learnings" way but in a rabbit-holey "let me show you my learnings" way.
• The layout of the book has pretty chapter art, which is cute and a nice touch.
• There's a cool diagram of Pascal's triangle (which, of course, was not originally discovered by Pascal) using Chinese counting rod numerals, published in Japan in 1712. (Similar to this, although this one is even earlier, from 1303.)
• Johannes Kepler gets a shoutout, which may or may not be useful for fiction purposes.
• The description of slide rules and their basis in logarithms was useful as well, as someone who is too young to have used a slide rule :)
• The second half is a little dryer than the first, more corporate-speak. The focus-but-not-really on "pocket calculators" means he has an excuse for fast-forwarding through a lot of computer development, but there's less of a clear narrative.
• Grace Hopper did not define the "mechanical error" sense of a "bug" (Thomas Edison used the word in a similar way in 1878); she did, of course, immortalize the irony of "the problem this time really was caused by a moth!"
• Just in general, "pocket" size is really limiting. Especially for women who already don't have enough pockets :P
• There are a couple cases where the author points out "yeah we don't even know anything of the woman who made this suggestion/this inventor's mother, society is really sexist sometimes :("
• A quote from an engineer who worked on the Sumlock ANITA in 1961: "Experienced calculator operators were slow to appreciate the technological breakthrough because they could not get used to the lack of 'feel' and noise that was inherent in mechanical machines. The same phenomenon was experienced by typists changing from manual to electric typewriters." The same issue we have today with electric cars!