John Tracy Kidder (November 12, 1945 – March 24, 2026) was a Pulitzer Prize-winning American writer of the 1981 nonfiction narrative, The Soul of a New Machine, about the creation of a new computer at Data General Corporation.
Franklin Library Tracy Kidder books
The Soul of a New Machine - Pulitzer Prize Classics - 1986
Among School Children - signed first edition - 1989
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Author Tracy Kidder
Kidder was born November 12, 1945 in New York City. He graduated from Phillips Academy in 1963. He attended Harvard University, originally majoring in political science, but switched to English after taking a course in creative writing from Robert Fitzgerald. He received an AB degree from Harvard in 1967.
He served in the US Army as a first lieutenant, Military Intelligence, Vietnam, from 1967 to 1969. After returning from Vietnam he wrote for some time and then enrolled in the Iowa Writers' Workshop. He received an MFA degree from the University of Iowa in 1974.
Death
Kidder passed away from lung cancer on March 24, 2026, at the age of 80.
Tracy Kidder books in order
The Road to Yuba City: A Journey into the Juan Corona Murders (1974)
The Soul of a New Machine (1981)
House (1985)
Among Schoolchildren (1989)
Old Friends (1993)
Home Town (1999)
Mountains Beyond Mountains (2003)
My Detachment: A Memoir (2005)
Strength in What Remains (2009)
Good Prose: The Art of Nonfiction (2013)
A Truck Full of Money: One Man's Quest to Recover from Great Success (2016)
Rough Sleepers: Dr. Jim O'Connell's Urgent Mission to Bring Healing to Homeless People (2023)
Source and additional information: Tracy Kidder