As another user said, it's not oriented towards a beginner. You would want some, maybe most, of the background in NAND 2 Tetris first. Chapter 16 about that mentioned processor for example, and it just throws you in the deep end with the Verilog code. Here's the CPU interface with the system bus, the registers, and how the multiplier unit works.
The good part is the commentary about the design decisions and trade-offs. That is invaluable, because it is the wisdom of Niklaus Wirth, towards the end of his career, drawing on a lifetime of experience. He was one of those rare polymaths, with a broad and deep understanding, of both the circuitry, and the more abstract parts of CS. He always generalized, tried to understand the principle, and places things in their historical context and explains how they developed. Because it's Wirth, the history lesson is often based on personal experience. It produces a good synthesis, in my opinion. For example:
> The second [interface] (MouseX) is included here for historical reasons. It was used by the computer Lilith in 1979, and used the same Mouse as its ancestor Alto (at PARC, 1975). It is distinguished by a very simple hardware without its own microprocessor, which is currently contained in most mice. This goes at a cost of a 9-wire cable. But today, microprocessors are cheaper than cables. We include this interface here, because it allows for a simple explanation of the principle of pointing devices.
The good part is the commentary about the design decisions and trade-offs. That is invaluable, because it is the wisdom of Niklaus Wirth, towards the end of his career, drawing on a lifetime of experience. He was one of those rare polymaths, with a broad and deep understanding, of both the circuitry, and the more abstract parts of CS. He always generalized, tried to understand the principle, and places things in their historical context and explains how they developed. Because it's Wirth, the history lesson is often based on personal experience. It produces a good synthesis, in my opinion. For example:
> The second [interface] (MouseX) is included here for historical reasons. It was used by the computer Lilith in 1979, and used the same Mouse as its ancestor Alto (at PARC, 1975). It is distinguished by a very simple hardware without its own microprocessor, which is currently contained in most mice. This goes at a cost of a 9-wire cable. But today, microprocessors are cheaper than cables. We include this interface here, because it allows for a simple explanation of the principle of pointing devices.