A TRUCK FULL OF MONEY

With the power of a consummate storyteller, Tracy Kidder casts a fresh, critical, and often humorous eye on the way new inventions and new money are reshaping our culture. A Truck Full of Money is a mesmerizing portrait of an irresistibly endearing man who is indefatigable, original, and as unpredictable as America itself.

Fortune, mania, generosity, genius—the bestselling author of Mountains Beyond Mountains gives us the inspiring story of Kayak.com founder Paul English, an American maverick and a man who had a mind for the age that was coming. Tracy Kidder, the “master of the nonfiction narrative” (The Baltimore Sun) and author of the bestselling classic The Soul of the New Machine, now gives us the inspiring story of Paul English, a kinetic and unconventional inventor and entrepreneur, who as a boy rebelled against authority. Growing up in working-class Boston, English discovers a medium for his talents the first time he sees a computer. As a young man, despite suffering from what will later be diagnosed as bipolar disorder, he begins his pilgrim’s journey through the ups and downs in the brave new world of computers. Relating to the Internet as if it’s an extension of his own mind, he discovers that he has a gift for building creative teams of people, becoming a pied piper of geeks. His innovative management style, success, and innate sense of fair play inspire intense loyalty. Early on, one colleague observes: “Someday this boy’s going to get hit by a truck full of money, and I’m going to be standing beside him.” Yet when English makes a fortune as co-founder of the travel website Kayak.com, the first thing he thinks about is how to give it away. “What else would you do with it?” he asks. Money, after all, is meant to be moved. “Hoarding it is a disaster, because it goes against what money was created for.” The second thing he thinks is, what’s next? Tracy Kidder graduated from Harvard and studied at the University of Iowa. He has won the Pulitzer Prize, the National Book Award, the Robert F. Kennedy Book Award, and many other literary prizes. The author of Strength in What Remains, My Detachment, Mountains Beyond Mountains, Home Town, Old Friends, Among Schoolchildren, House, and The Soul of a New Machine, Tracy Kidder lives in Massachusetts.