Book Review: Charles and Ada: The Computer’s Most Passionate Partnership 

Synopsis: Charles and Ada: the computer’s most passionate partnership
PUB: The History Press
Paperback 256 pages

The partnership of Charles Babbage and Ada Lovelace was one that would change science forever.
They were an unlikely pair – one the professor son of a banker, the other the only child of an acclaimed poet and a social-reforming mathematician – but perhaps that is why their work is so revolutionary.
They were the pioneers of computer science, creating plans for what could have been the first computer. They each saw things the other did not; it may have been Charles who designed the machines, but it was Ada who could see their potential.
But what were they like? And how did they work together? Using previously unpublished correspondence between them , Charles and Ada explores the relationship between two remarkable people who shared dreams far ahead of their time.


Thoughts/Review:
I thoroughly enjoyed this well research bio on some of the most famous names in the pioneer in computer engineering - Charles Babbage and Ada Lovelace, who were both well ahead of their time. Essinger was able to capture and made well use of the research and the extensive collection available in the British Library Babbage Archive in London, and also included amazing amounts of personal material on Babbages' eventful life, both tragic and private. Essinger's brilliant story telling and filling in the blanks to what Charles Babbages life was his true genius. The book read with such ease and the stories presented were so interesting that included the social history of that time. I learned a lot and really enjoyed this read with such enthusiasm that I highly recommend this amazing and well-written biography.

Author Bio

James Essinger was born in Leicester in 1957 and has lived in Canterbury in Kent since 1986. He was educated at Wyggeston Grammar School for Boys, Leicester, and at Lincoln College, Oxford, where he read English Language and Literature. He spent much of his time between 1981 and 1983 teaching English in Finland before working in public relations in London and then in Canterbury. Since 1988, James has been a professional writer.

His non-fiction books include Jacquard's Web (2004), Ada’s Algorithm (2013), which is to be filmed by Monumental Pictures, and Charles and Ada: the computer’s most passionate partnership (2019) His novels include The Mating Game (2016) with Jovanka Houska, the film rights of which have been optioned, Rollercoaster (2019) and The Ada Lovelace Project (forthcoming in 2020).

Social Media Links


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Purchase Links

UK - https://www.amazon.co.uk/Charles-Ada-Computers-Passionate-Partnership/dp/0750990953

US - https://www.amazon.com/Charles-Ada-Computers-Passionate-Partnership/dp/0750990953