Tracy Kidder, Author of 'The Soul of a New Machine,' Dies at 80
Source: NYT
Tracy Kidder, a wide-ranging journalist and author whose deep reporting and novelistic prose illuminated worlds as diverse as home construction, disease prevention and — as portrayed in his prizewinning 1981 breakthrough book, “The Soul of a New Machine” — the computer industry, died on Tuesday in Boston. He was 80.
His daughter, Alice Kidder Bukhman, and his son, Nat Kidder, said he died of lung cancer at Dr. Kidder Bukhman’s home.
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For “Among Schoolchildren” (1989), he spent an entire school year in a Massachusetts classroom. For “Mountains Beyond Mountains: The Quest of Dr. Paul Farmer, a Man Who Would Cure the World” (2003), Mr. Kidder followed Dr. Farmer — the founder of Partners in Health, an organization that provides care to some of the world’s poorest people — to his hospital in Haiti as well as to Peru, Cuba, Russia and elsewhere.
His most lauded book, “The Soul of a New Machine,” introduced readers to the physical parts and electronic bits that go into creating a business computer. The book arrived just as the PC revolution was gearing up.
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Read more: https://www.nytimes.com/2026/03/25/books/tracy-kidder-dead.html
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