I would recommend the book "Inside the Machine" by Jon Stokes. I'm a programmer so not going in with fresh eyes necessarily, but it definitely felt like it began at the start and the author was a tech journalist for Ars Technica (with a Computer Systems background) - I think it does a really good job. It also happens to be one of my favorite books, especially if you're interested in older hardware.

I'll check it out. Thank you!

When I was a kid I'd often spend an evening on a deep dive reading How Stuff Works (as Wikipedia didn't exist then).

https://computer.howstuffworks.com/microprocessor.htm

Thanks for this, looks like a solid introduction!

First find a small problem that you would like to solve then search for a programming solution.