Posted by People who are passionate about something tell many stories from their childhood or youth in which they cite events, books, people that inspired their later professional life. I, too, have a few such moments. As for the book, there was only one.
And perhaps I wouldn’t have even paid attention to it, if it hadn’t been for a certain person who, listening to my childhood story, said: it was you after all! That’s how it started!
The book was written in Polish, and I don’t think you can find a translation into any other language. The author was Polish writer Alfred Szklarski, and the title of the book was: “Sobowtór profesora Rawy” (The double of Professor Rawa).
The story is set in the 1960s in Katowice, a city in southern Poland. A professor named Rawa (the Rawa River flows through Katowice) constructs a robot that is his double. There are several themes in the novel, including a crime and adventure plot, as the main characters of the book are children.
I read the book when I was a teenager. At the same time I was fascinated by electronics and robotics at the time. At that time it still did not occur to me that someday it would be possible to build a robot manager, it only happened decades later. Yet it all started with this book.
If you can, read this book:
https://lubimyczytac.pl/ksiazka/74179/sobowtor-profesora-rawy