In several critically acclaimed and award-winning nonfiction books, Tracy Kidder has combined meticulous research and reportorial skills to produce fascinating portrayals of subjects as diverse as elementary education, homebuilding, and nursing homes. He is especially noted for his skillful, unobtrusive observations of people at work in the world, and his ability to present complex, unfamiliar material--such as the intricate workings of computer hardware and software in his Pulitzer-Prize-winning The Soul of a New Machine--in a manner easily accessible to the average reader.

Kidder was born November 12, 1945, in New York City. His father, Henry Maynard Kidder, was a lawyer, and his mother, Reine Kidder, was a high school teacher. When he was a child, Kidder's mother recited "Charles Dickens and Herman Melville to him, nurturing his early love of reading," related David Bennett in the Dictionary of Literary Biography, "which, [Kidder] says, is `an experience that leaves you...