The Soul of a New Machine Lib/E

Product Description


Computers have changed since 1981, when Tracy Kidder memorably recorded the drama, comedy, and excitement of one company's efforts to bring a new microcomputer to market. What has not changed is the feverish pace of the high-tech industry, the go-for-broke approach to business that has caused so many computer companies to win big (or go belly up), and the cult of pursuing mind-bending technological innovations. The Soul of a New Machine is an essential chapter in the history of the machine that revolutionized the world in the twentieth century.


Review


Ben Sullivan does a solid job narrating Kidder's 1981 account of a team of engineers outside Boston who are designing a new computer...Here, Sullivan enlivens the sometimes arcane engineering disputes. He has a strong, pleasant voice, and his pacing is good, and his delivery clear...Kidder's careful observations withstand the test of time.-- "AudioFile"


Fascinating...A surprisingly gripping account of people at work.-- "Wall Street Journal"


It has the ring of truth...For readers who would like to know what it takes to make a computer, how computers are organized, and who the people are who put them together.-- "New York Review of Books"


Kidder has a good feel for people and, equally important here, the ability to make a computer's internal workings relatively understandable to a nontechnical reader.-- "Kirkus Reviews"


Kidder has endowed the tale with such pace, texture, and poetic implication that he has elevated it to a high level of narrative art.-- "New York Times Book Review"


Kidder's 1981 volume was published when mini-supercomputers were still the stuff of science fiction. How the world has turned. Though technology has grown immeasurably since then, this volume still serves as an interesting history of the machine that conquered the world.-- "Library Journal"


Riveting...A well-paced story of corporate invention and intrigue...Compelling entertainment and much more.-- "Washington Post Book World"


About the Author


Tracy Kidder has won the Pulitzer Prize, the National Book Award, and the Robert F. Kennedy Award, among other literary prizes. He is the author of The Soul of a New Machine, House, Among Schoolchildren, Old Friends, Home Town, and others.


Ben Sullivan is an actor, voice artist, and Earphones Award-winning audiobook narrator.