Proving Ground: The Untold Story of the Six Women Who Programmed the World’s First Modern Computer, by Kathy Kleiman, published 2022, history, 276 pages. Though the prose is regrettably monotonous and wooden, and facts are sometimes inexplicably repeated after a few pages, it’s an important part of early computing history that I hadn’t learned about before and was overall worthwhile. (I’ll note here, by the way, that I’ve worked with many great female software engineers, and I firmly believe the field would as a whole be better off if the demographics were more balanced.) Partway through the book I realized to my surprise that I’ve been programming for around 43% of the time digital computers have been around, if we go with ENIAC’s 1945 creation as our start date. I … don’t know how that happened. Suddenly I feel old. The Enchanted April, by Elizabeth von Arnim, published 1922, fiction, 299 pages. I loved it! Delightful, witty, well-wrought, and the voice was a great fit for me. Very…
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