Books for Ada Lovelace Day

In a beautifully written and science-packed debut memoir, Egyptian-American astrophysicist Sarafina Nance shares her personal story of overcoming sexism, racism, and adversity, and appreciating the most important moments and people in her life by focusing on her lifelong love of the stars.

The first American woman to walk in space recounts her experience as part of the team that launched, rescued, repaired, and maintained the 30-year-old Hubble Space Telescope.

A powerful memoir from Katalin Karikó, winner of the 2023 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine, whose decades-long research led to the COVID-19 vaccines.

A debut graphic biography that transforms one of the most compelling scientific collaborations into a hilarious series of adventures.Meet Victorian London’s most dynamic duo: Charles Babbage, the unrealized inventor of the computer, and his accomplice, Ada, Countess of Lovelace, the peculiar protoprogrammer and daughter of Lord Byron. When Lovelace translated a description of Babbage’s plans for an enormous mechanical calculating machine in 1842, she added annotations three times longer than the original work. Her footnotes contained the first appearance of the general computing theory, a hundred years before an actual computer was built. Sadly, Lovelace died of cancer a decade after publishing the paper, and Babbage never built any of his machines.But do not despair! The Thrilling Adventures of Lovelace and Babbage presents a rollicking alternate reality in which Lovelace and Babbage do build the Difference Engine and then use it to build runaway economic models, battle the scourge of spelling errors, explore the wilder realms of mathematics, and, of course, fight crime—for the sake of both London and science. Complete with extensive footnotes that rival those penned by Lovelace herself, historical curiosities, and never-before-seen diagrams of Babbage’s mechanical, steam-powered computer, The Thrilling Adventures of Lovelace and Babbage is wonderfully whimsical, utterly unusual, and, above all, entirely irresistible.With black-and-white illustrations throughout.

The captivating, little-known true story of women’s landmark contributions to astronomy.

Pioneering environmentalist Rachel Carson explores the wonders of the Earth's oceans in these classics of American science and nature writing.

The uplifting story of a young Black scientist’s challenging journey to flourish outside the traditional confines of academia, inspired by her innate connection to nature’s most misunderstood animal—the shark."Jasmin Graham has that winning combination of talent and grit needed to excel as a scientist. Every girl who wants to be a marine biologist should have this book." —Hope Jahren, New York Times bestselling author of Lab Girl and The Story of More

If you loved Hidden Figures or The Rise of the Rocket Girls, you'll love Claire Evans' breakthrough book on the women who brought you the internet—written out of history, until now.