The Thrilling Adventures of Lovelace and Babbage

by Sydney Padua (2015). A graphic novel about Ada Lovelace (the world’s first programmer) and Charles Babbage (who conceived of what we’d now consider to be the first mechanical computer). The book begins with the truth: Both Charles and Ada died before realizing their work’s full potential. But then it goes back and explores what could’ve happened if things had gone differently, while illuminating the intricacies of computational machinery in a fun, thoroughly accessible way.

by Isaac Asimov (1956). This is a short story that’s only a few pages long but spans many millennia and stays with you for a long while. Asimov considered it the best thing he ever wrote.