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A review by bookishwordish
A Female Genius: How Ada Lovelace Lord Byron's Daughter Started the Computer Age by James Essinger
3.0
There was a lot of focus on Ada's father, and I understand why. I mean... it's hard NOT to write about Lord Byron, considering how interesting (read: wild) his life was. But this isn't meant to be a book about Lord Byron, is it? So that was frustrating.
When it wasn't talking about Byron, there was a lot of discussion about Ada's social life- placing her in the wider social context of her time. Which is fine. It makes sense. It's important. But there was a lot of that, and this isn't a very long book.
Then there was much discussion of her personal life. You know, how she got on with her mother, what her romantic life was like, who she made friends with. Not uninteresting, but still not very much about her being a genius.
None of these subjects were uninteresting. They all belong in this sort of book- we need the context of her family, her social situation, etc. Those things are pretty standard and necessary. But this is only a short book, and between her dad, her social life and her love life, there wasn't much time left for her intellectual life. Which, for a book that describes itself as examining 'a female genius' is pretty depressing.
When it wasn't talking about Byron, there was a lot of discussion about Ada's social life- placing her in the wider social context of her time. Which is fine. It makes sense. It's important. But there was a lot of that, and this isn't a very long book.
Then there was much discussion of her personal life. You know, how she got on with her mother, what her romantic life was like, who she made friends with. Not uninteresting, but still not very much about her being a genius.
None of these subjects were uninteresting. They all belong in this sort of book- we need the context of her family, her social situation, etc. Those things are pretty standard and necessary. But this is only a short book, and between her dad, her social life and her love life, there wasn't much time left for her intellectual life. Which, for a book that describes itself as examining 'a female genius' is pretty depressing.