Tracy Kidder graduated from Harvard and studied at the University of Iowa. He has won the Pulitzer Prize, the National Book Award, the Robert F. Kennedy Award, and many other literary prizes. The author of Strength in What Remains, My Detachment, Mountains Beyond Mountains, Home Town, Old Friends, Among Schoolchildren, House, and The Soul of a New Machine, Kidder lives in Massachusetts and Maine.
“A Truck Full of Money, which traces [Paul] English’s rocket rise
during the Internet’s founding era while dealing for years with
undiagnosed bipolar disease that sometimes made him soar and
sometimes brought him low, acts as a fitting bookend to his
Pulitzer Prize–winning The Soul of a New Machine. In part, it is to
contemporary computer software what Soul was to 1970s computer
hardware. . . . Kidder’s prose glides with a figure skater’s ease,
but without the glam. His is a seemingly artless art, like John
McPhee’s, that conceals itself in sentences that are necessary,
economical, and unpretentious.”—The Boston Globe
“Kidder’s portrayal of living with manic depression is as nuanced
and intimate as a reader might ever expect to get. . . . You can’t
help admiring Mr. English and cheering for him.”—The New York
Times
“[A] powerful and insightful tale that makes the Internet era
entertaining, and defines English as an endearing, generous and
eccentric geek.”—USA Today
“Kidder’s readable account of an intriguing man’s zigzagging life .
. . succeeds in helping those of us on the outskirts of the
engineering world understand how people like Paul English are
pulled towards computing at a young age. At times, the narrative of
the young technologist, at least in Kidder’s hands, seems the
modern equivalent of the story of the godless wayfarer who stumbles
into a cathedral in a distant city, only to find that its vaulting
arches and organ music bring on exaltations of mind and
spirit.”—The New York Times Book Review
“What kind of entrepreneur talks about making money as if it’s,
well, kind of a bummer? You’ll ask yourself that question about a
dozen or so pages into A Truck Full of Money, Tracy Kidder’s
expertly reported, deftly written new book that tracks the rise of
unconventional software executive and Kayak co-founder Paul
English.”—San Francisco Chronicle
“Kidder writes beautifully, creating an engaging storyline while
avoiding clichés and pretention. . . . Readers are in for a
fascinating ride.”—The National Book Review
“Tracy Kidder has a nose for great stories. . . . A Truck Full of
Money follows the trajectory of Paul English, a giant in the world
of software engineering, who is equal parts geek, rock star and
rainmaker. . . . Tracy Kidder’s achievement in this biography is
matched by the ease of his storytelling. Kidder takes on a hugely
complicated man—brilliant, troubled, obsessive, a charismatic team
leader, dutiful son and ‘monster coder,’ as English might say—and
he paints a rich, three-dimensional portrait. He also gives a sense
of the wild start-up culture in which English thrived. That Paul
English comes across as a shrewd, appealing character, not a saint,
reflects Kidder’s success.”—Portland Press Herald
“A perfectly executed, exquisitely reported parable of the Internet
age, and the wild, mad adventure that is start-up culture.”—Charles
Duhigg
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