[carbonguy]

Perhaps a bit late to the thread here, but I have to put in my $0.02 for "The Way Things Work" (and its sequels):

https://www.alibris.com/Way-Things-Work-David-Macaulay/book/...

For the unfamiliar - the book is an illustrated guide to how different kinds of mechanisms and designed systems work starting from simple machines, levers, wheel and axle, etc. through to nuclear fission and moving on through computers in the sequels.

David Macaulay's writing and illustrations are top-notch. Honestly, all of his books are great, but this is the one that I actually owned when I was younger so I read it all the time - hard to put into words the impact it had on me at around that same age.

[bytehowl]

These books actually have an interactive software couterpart which came out in the 90s. It might be hard to get a hold of it legally and to run it nowadays, though.