Good Prose: The Art of Nonfiction
Jan 2013 · Sold by Random House
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About this ebook
A “smart, lucid, and entertaining” (The Boston Globe) modern classic of writing advice and a thoughtful record of the long and productive literary friendship between two renowned authors
“You are in such good company—congenial, ironic, a bit old-school—that you’re happy to follow [Kidder and Todd] where they lead you.”—The Wall Street Journal
“As approachable and applicable as any writing manual available.”—Associated Press
The story begins in 1973, in the Boston offices of The Atlantic Monthly, where a young freelance writer named Tracy Kidder finds his first assignment from an editor named Richard Todd. Before long, Kidder’s The Soul of a New Machine, the first book the two worked on together, has won a Pulitzer Prize, and a lifelong education in the art of nonfiction has begun.
In Good Prose, Kidder and Todd draw candidly on their own experience to offer advice to writers of all kinds. They explore three major nonfiction forms—narratives, essays, and memoirs—and examine the creative strategies and ethical challenges of nonfiction and the realities of making a living as a writer. Good Prose—like Strunk and White’s The Elements of Style—is a succinct, authoritative, and entertaining arbiter of standards in contemporary writing, offering guidance for the professional writer and the beginner alike.
A KIRKUS REVIEWS BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR
“You are in such good company—congenial, ironic, a bit old-school—that you’re happy to follow [Kidder and Todd] where they lead you.”—The Wall Street Journal
“As approachable and applicable as any writing manual available.”—Associated Press
The story begins in 1973, in the Boston offices of The Atlantic Monthly, where a young freelance writer named Tracy Kidder finds his first assignment from an editor named Richard Todd. Before long, Kidder’s The Soul of a New Machine, the first book the two worked on together, has won a Pulitzer Prize, and a lifelong education in the art of nonfiction has begun.
In Good Prose, Kidder and Todd draw candidly on their own experience to offer advice to writers of all kinds. They explore three major nonfiction forms—narratives, essays, and memoirs—and examine the creative strategies and ethical challenges of nonfiction and the realities of making a living as a writer. Good Prose—like Strunk and White’s The Elements of Style—is a succinct, authoritative, and entertaining arbiter of standards in contemporary writing, offering guidance for the professional writer and the beginner alike.
A KIRKUS REVIEWS BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR
A “smart, lucid, and entertaining” (The Boston Globe) modern classic of writing advice and a thoughtful record of the long and productive literary friendship between two renowned authors
“You are in such good company—congenial, ironic, a bit old-school—that you’re happy to follow [Kidder and Tod...
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4 reviews
About the author
Tracy Kidder graduated from Harvard and the University of Iowa. He won the Pulitzer Prize, the National Book Award, the Robert F. Kennedy Award, and many other literary prizes. He is the author of Rough Sleepers, A Truck Full of Money, Good Prose (with Richard Todd), Strength in What Remains, My Detachment, Mountains Beyond Mountains, Home Town, Old Friends, Among Schoolchildren, House, and The Soul of a New Machine. Kidder passed away in 2026.
Richard Todd was educated at Amherst and Stanford. He has spent many years as a magazine and book editor, and has written articles on a wide range of cultural themes for Harper’s, The Atlantic Monthly, The New York Times Magazine, Condé Nast Traveler, and the Columbia Journalism Review, among others. He is the author of a previous book, The Thing Itself, and he teaches in the MFA program at Goucher College.
Richard Todd was educated at Amherst and Stanford. He has spent many years as a magazine and book editor, and has written articles on a wide range of cultural themes for Harper’s, The Atlantic Monthly, The New York Times Magazine, Condé Nast Traveler, and the Columbia Journalism Review, among others. He is the author of a previous book, The Thing Itself, and he teaches in the MFA program at Goucher College.
Tracy Kidder graduated from Harvard and the University of Iowa. He won the Pulitzer Prize, the National Book Award, the Robert F. Kennedy Award, and many other literary prizes. He is the author of Rough Sleepers, A Truck Full of Money, Good Prose (with Richard Todd), Strength in What Remains, My ...
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