Good Prose

The Art of Nonfiction

By: Tracy Kidder, Richard Todd

Narrated by: Sean Pratt

Good Prose is an inspiring book about writing - about the creation of good prose - and the record of a warm and productive literary friendship. The story begins in 1973, in the offices of the Atlantic Monthly, in Boston, where a young freelance writer named Tracy Kidder came looking for an assignment. Richard Todd was the editor who encouraged him, and from that article grew a lifelong association. Before long, Kidder's The Soul of a New Machine, the first book the two worked on together, had won the Pulitzer Prize.

Good Prose explores three major nonfiction forms: narratives, essays, and memoirs. Kidder and Todd draw candidly, sometimes comically, on their own experience - their mistakes as well as accomplishments - to demonstrate the pragmatic ways in which creative problems get solved. They also turn to the works of a wide range of writers, novelists as well as nonfiction writers, for models and instruction. They talk about narrative strategies, about the ethical challenges of nonfiction, and about the realities of making a living as a writer. They offer some tart and emphatic opinions on the current state of language. And they take a clear stand against playing loose with the facts. Their advice is always grounded in the practical world of writing and publishing.

©2013 John Tracy Kidder and Richard Todd (P)2017 Tantor

A Pleasure

Among the many pleasures of listening to this book is hearing so many of my other favorite authors discussed. I am going to buy the Kindle version now so that I can search the text. I am semi-retired, and I wish I had heard Richard Todd’s description of the editor’s relationship to the writer years ago. It would have helped me to help all those students with their college essays.

a recommend read

there are many books on writing and fewer seldom that helpful. modern aspiring writers should read this book, although the emphasis is nonfiction the advice is generally Universal.

Tendentious

Windy.
Self-satisfied.
Ditheringly disquisitional.
Omphaloskeptic.
Inside baseball.
Self-congratulatory.
Exclusionist.
Fuddy-duddy.
Wall-to-wall sesquipedalian tergiversations.