Good Prose, Richard Todd
Good Prose, Richard Todd
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Good Prose
The Art of Nonfiction

Author: Richard Todd, Tracy Kidder

Narrator: Sean Pratt

Unabridged: 5 hr 50 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Publisher: Tantor Media

Published: 12/05/2017

Synopsis

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.

About Richard Todd

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, Conde 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.

Reviews

Goodreads review by Jeff on January 20, 2013

This short work is not "Everything You Need to Know About Writing." Nor is it a didactic set of rules in the manner of Strunk & White's "The Elements of Style." Even less is it a collection of Miss Grundy's scoldings. Rather, it is a seminar-like rumination by an author and editor, drawn from their 4......more

Goodreads review by Deb (Readerbuzz) on March 12, 2016

Wanna-be writers like me are always looking for good books on good writing. I love Tracy Kidder’s writing and, if Richard Todd is, indeed, Kidder’s long-time editor, then he is also on my Good Boy list. So I thus fell into that old trap of Anticipating and Having Expectations that so often disappoin......more

Goodreads review by Dewitt on February 09, 2013

I enjoyed Kidder-and-Todd’s GOOD PROSE: THE ART OF NONFICTION (definitely five stars), where they argue “that the publishing industry is not organized to reward editors who spend a lot of time on books,” but I am surprised that they have nothing to say about MFA programs. “A writer should try to inv......more

Goodreads review by Nathan on March 29, 2013

What a difficult challenge one sets oneself, when one creates something about the very medium in which one is working. To give a lecture on public speaking is to invite criticism. So too to write about non-fiction. And how much bigger the target one becomes when one already has a name, such as that......more

Goodreads review by Hank on January 28, 2016

I found more to agree with than disagree with here and I liked the interplay between a writer (Tracy Kidder) and his life-long editor (Richard Todd). The editor/writer relationship is a strange and intimate thing; difficult to describe to people who haven't lived it. Readers of this book should know......more

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