Reading Suggestions

Below are 7 recommended books — a short guide to what each does best and why you’ll enjoy it if you liked Hodges.

---

Top picks (concise guide)

1) 

Turing’s Cathedral — George Dyson (2012)

Why read it: Dyson writes with literary sweep and deep archival research about the Princeton / von Neumann circle and the birth of the digital-computing paradigm. It situates ENIAC/EDVAC/early mainframe ideas inside the intellectual program that produced them (von Neumann, John Wheeler, Oppenheimer’s circle). For a Hodges-style blend of ideas, people and consequences, this is a top recommendation. 

2) 

The Innovators — Walter Isaacson (2014)

Why read it: Isaacson’s panoramic, vividly readable history links Ada Lovelace → Babbage → Turing → von Neumann → ENIAC → modern computing. It’s excellent for seeing the web of conversations and institutional links (Moore School, Harvard, Bell Labs) that turned thought experiments into machines. Isaacson is superb at crafting human portraits and connective storytelling. 

3) 

ENIAC: The Triumphs and Tragedies of the World’s First Computer — Scott McCartney (2016)

Why read it: Focused on the ENIAC story and the personalities (Eckert, Mauchly, the Moore School), McCartney tells the drama, disputes, and engineering feats in a lively narrative. Good on human conflict, legal battles, and the machine’s wartime origins. (More journalistic than technical — ideal if you want the human drama.) 

4) 

ENIAC in Action: Making and Remaking the Modern Computer — Thomas Haigh, Mark Priestly & Crispin Rope (2019)

Why read it: A scholarly yet readable deep dive into ENIAC’s engineering, its re-use, and how early computing practice evolved. Haigh’s work is excellent when you want technical clarity without dry academic prose — especially useful if you want to understand how the machine actually worked and how it shaped later practice. 

5) 

The Man Who Invented the Computer — Jane Smiley (2017)

Why read it: Focuses on John Atanasoff and the ABC (Atanasoff-Berry Computer), illuminating an often overlooked strand of the pre-ENIAC story and the patent controversies that followed. Good storytelling and useful corrective history. 

6) 

Engines of the Mind: The Evolution of the Computer — Joel Shurkin (1996)

Why read it: Presents a readable history spanning early electromechanical machines through ENIAC and into mainframes. Strong on people and context; a good bridge book if you want steady narration across decades. 

7) 

John von Neumann and the Origins of Modern Computing — William Aspray (1990)

Why read it: If you want a rigorous, well-researched account of von Neumann’s role (architecture, stored-program concept, influence on ENIAC/EDVAC), Aspray is one of the best academic treatments that still reads well for a general reader. Use this to deepen your understanding of the intellectual pivot from machine to architecture. 

---

Reading order I’d recommend

1. The Innovators (Isaacson) — quick panoramic orientation.

2. Turing’s Cathedral (Dyson) — intellectual/Princeton context (von Neumann).

3. ENIAC: The Triumphs and Tragedies (McCartney) — human drama at the Moore School.

4. ENIAC in Action (Haigh et al.) — technical & historiographic depth.

5. Atanasoff / von Neumann books (Smiley, Aspray) — fill in origin disputes and architecture theory.

   This sequence gives the grand sweep first, then the personalities, then the machine mechanics and archival nuance.