Tracy Kidder, author portrait
© Frances Kidder

Tracy Kidder

Tracy Kidder graduated from Harvard and the University of Iowa. He won the Pulitzer Prize, the National Book Award, the Robert F. Kennedy Award, and many other literary prizes. He is the author of Rough Sleepers, A Truck Full of Money, Good Prose (with Richard Todd), Strength in What Remains, My Detachment, Mountains Beyond Mountains, Home Town, Old Friends, Among Schoolchildren, House, and The Soul of a New Machine. Kidder passed away in 2026.
Rough Sleepers
Mountains Beyond Mountains (Adapted for Young People)
Mountains Beyond Mountains

Books

Rough Sleepers
Mountains Beyond Mountains (Adapted for Young People)
Mountains Beyond Mountains

Videos from the 2026 First-Year Experience® Conference are now available

We’re pleased to share videos from the 2026 First-Year Experience® Conference. Whether you weren’t able to join us at the conference or would simply like to hear the talks again, please take a moment to view the clips below.   Penguin Random House Author Breakfast Monday, February 17th, 7:15 – 8:45 am PST   This

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What Students Will Be Reading: Campus Common Reading Roundup, 2025-26

With the fall semester in full swing, colleges and universities around the country have announced their Common Reading books for the upcoming 2025-26 academic year. We’ve compiled a list of over 291 programs and their title selections from publicly available sources, which you can download here: First-Year Reading 2025-26. We will continue to update this

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2026 Catalog for First-Year & Common Reading

We are delighted to present our new First-Year & Common Reading Catalog for 2026! From award-winning fiction, poetry, memoir, and biography to new books about the environment, current events, history, public health, science, social justice, student success, and technology, the titles presented in our common reading catalog will have students not only eagerly flipping through

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In Memoriam: Tracy Kidder, Pulitzer Prize-Winning Random House Author, Dies at 80

Tracy Kidder, Pulitzer Prize-winning author, has passed away at age 80. Tracy Kidder’s books covered subjects as wide-ranging as global public health, computer science, education, construction, and homelessness, but they were all united by his trademark research and dogged reporting that provided the foundations for stories of real people, passionately committed to their work. In

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