If you’d like to get a flavour of Empire of the Sum, check out this extract in Lapham’s Quarterly! It’s taken from the first chapter of the book, and, spoiler alert, it has nothing to do with the image (above) they’ve chosen to illustrate it — although Hollerith’s machines do make an appearance later in the book, and, coincidentally enough, I wrote about them a few years back in the context of the Monotype machine. Everything old is new again!
It’s publication day! Empire of the Sum: The Rise and Reign of the Pocket Calculator is published today in the USA. You can order a copy from from Norton, Amazon.com, Barnes & Noble, Books A Million, Bookshop.org, Hudson, IndieBound, Powell’s, Target or Walmart.
This is your chance to win one of two free copies of Empire of the Sum: The Rise and Reign of the Pocket Calculator! To enter, leave a comment on this post with a valid email address so that I can contact you in the event that you win.
I very much enjoyed recording this podcast on the history of books with Dallas Campbell. I haven’t even heard it myself yet – why not have a listen and let me know what you think?
Apologies for the relaxed pace of posts here; I’ve been hard at work on the manuscript for Empire of the Sum, which is currently ping-ponging between New York and Birmingham as my editor helps knock it into shape. There isn’t much time left for writing anything else!