ipl-logo

Tracy Kidder's The Soul Of A New Machine

400 Words2 Pages

Soul of A New Machine was written in a way that I hadn’t quite been exposed to before. It followed Data General, a computer company on their journey to building Eagle, a 32-bit computer which would help revolutionize the industry. What made this story interesting and different than others I’ve read in the past is how Tracy Kidder, the book’s author, describes the current setting in first-person and weaves in dialogue to give more context and information about something. One thing that was beautifully done was character progression. It was clear that Tracy worked hard to demonstrate people’s actions in writing so you got a good idea as to what they were like as a person. One of the main ways I observed him doing this was when he would share someone’s personal opinion on something. An example of this was with Holberger, a 26-year-old computer engineer. “Holberger wears a trim black beard. In his routine actions, the way he walks down a hall, the shape of his mouth when he gets ready to talk, Holberger seems to embody assertion, as West does, but …show more content…

There’s mention of “West” which is the leader of the designers who worked on Eagle. This method of explaining someone’s character was used frequently. It did a wonderful job building the reader’s relationship to a character whether they embodied some of their traits and like them or can’t relate and don’t like them. Soul of A New Machine is written in a journalistic way, capturing each moment whether it’s at work or in someone’s home. It wasn’t uncommon to read about a sort of interview while someone is in their home. This was how Tracy went about discussing West as a person such as how he got into the business or even what a car ride with him was like. I found this level of detail to be interesting because it was mentioned that all the engineers working on Eagle knew little to nothing about West while I had built a good understanding of who he

Show More
Related

Strength In What Remains By Tracy Kidder

1591 Words | 7 Pages

Between Remembering and Forgetting The book Strength In What Remains by Tracy Kidder, tells the journey of Deo, from his escape from Hutu-Tutsi genocide in the mid-1990s to the United States and back to Burundi. In his journey, Deo struggle’s against his memories of the genocide, he was faced with two different ways of dealing with his memories, to forget or to remember. In the first half of the book, Deo follows the Burundian concept of forgetting about the past, this is due too the unwillingness of victims to recall and, thereby, relive the violence and pain of their recent history. But as he went through his journey, he realizes that although he wants to forget his past tragedies, he was unable to do so.

Read More

Sadie Frowne's 'The Story Of A Sweatshop Girl'

587 Words | 3 Pages

The Gilded Age Workers’ Experience After reading Sadie Frowne’s account, in The Story of a Sweatshop Girl. I was shocked how difficult the lives of the people that worked in these factories, during the Gilded Age, were. Frowne has always been poor and her family has always struggled with buying food and keeping their business running. Once Frowne’s father died, her family had it worse. Frowne started her working experience in her family’s shop, and when she got a little older her family came to the United States by ship.

Read More

Motorcycles And Sweetgrass By Drew Hayden Taylor

1179 Words | 5 Pages

Life is a journey of discovery and self-improvement, one who does not know themselves, cannot live their life. The book Motorcycles and Sweetgrass by Drew Hayden Taylor follow the self-growth and development of Virgil Second, caused by the actions of his family, and new characters in his life, as he blossoms into a man, connected more to his heritage/culture, with a stronger bond to his family, and a character with goals aspirations and a direction in life. From the start of the book, it is apparent that Virgil like the rest of the Otter Lake community is extremely disconnected from his culture. As he and the community were recovering from the stripping of First Nations culture due to residential schools, where a whole generation was punished

Read More

Anna Macherchevich's Take It In Strides

275 Words | 2 Pages

In the essay “Take it in Strides” the author, Anna Macherchevich, develops an exciting and intriguing paper. She tells a compelling narrative that expresses the importance of cross country and her team to her life. To accomplish this, she used well thought out descriptive language and dialogue that gives a good understand to the reader of her love of the sport. Firstly, Macherchevich she explains how cross country had given her the ability to set her mind on a goal and push through all challenges.

Read More

Meika Hashimoto's The Trail

774 Words | 4 Pages

The main character, the principal character, the protagonist, all the same person whose name is otherwise known as Toby. Throughout The Trail, you will learn a lot about Toby, and get a deeper understanding for what it is he is going through. This is because the author, Meika Hashimoto, does a great job portraying Toby as the character he really is through his actions and character traits. One example of these character traits is him being extremely pessimistic, which is basically seeing the worst in everything, or believing that the worst is almost always going to happen. As expressed in the book, “Like a total moron, I literally exited my campsite and started walking back in the direction I’d come from .

Read More

The Spirit Catches You And You Fall Down By Anne Fadiman

194 Words | 1 Pages

Have you ever thought about how difficult it might be to go into a different country knowing absolutely nothing, not even language, and something horrific happened to you or anyone in your family?  Don’t you think you would feel so powerless, so helpless, so clueless? This happens commonly and it has never had any attention brought to it, at least not until 1998. Anne Fadiman wrote a book entitled, The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down. This demonstrated a collision of two complete opposite cultures, but they both have the same goal to help the child get better.

Read More

People Of The Sparks By Jeane Duprau

897 Words | 4 Pages

The book I read was People of the Sparks by Jeanne DuPrau. The book is about all the people of Ember getting to this village that got out of a depression a few years ago and they are finally back up on their feet. Some of the people of Sparks don't like that the council people let the Emberties just settle in their village. The book is mostly about how the Emberties struggle to adapt and how they come to peace with the people of Spark. The narrator is someone from outside the story, so the point of view is third person.

Read More

Don T You Think It's Time To Start Thinking? By Northrop Frye

398 Words | 2 Pages

In the essay, “Don't you think It's Time to Start Thinking?” by Northrop Frye, published in the Toronto Star in 1986, tells how Northrop Frye was concerned about how often students are expressing their ideas without articulate them. And for this reason, the author feels that they do not have any sense of language as a structure. At the same time it provide information about how students and people in general should start thinking. When I read the title of this essay, I thought that will be just about the way that students were thinking but not critically.

Read More

Analysis Of The Glass Castle By Jeannette Walls

789 Words | 4 Pages

After reading Jeannette Walls book, The Glass Castle I can say with honesty that it is one of the best books I have ever read and will always be one of my favorite books. Three particular elements of the work stood out to me- the honesty of her writing style, the stories she shared, and the incredible character development. Throughout the book, in each and every story Walls tells the stories with complete honesty, not adding or detracting details to make the stories better. The writing is easy to understand and therefore it is easy to get caught up in the book and really enjoy it.

Read More

Tracy Kidder's 'The Strength In What Remains'

667 Words | 3 Pages

The United States has not officially had an official declaration of war, within itself or on another country since the second World War in 1941, but imagine what would happen if a civil war or genocide began right here in continental America. In Tracy Kidder’s The Strength in What Remains, the author describes the struggle of Deogratias “Deo” Niyizonkiza, as he finds a way to escape his home country, Burundi, while callous civil war rages on through the mountainous country. In contrast to Deo story, Man’s Search for Meaning, by Viktor E. Frankl, the author and main protagonist, a psychiatrist studying humans suffering, while imprisoned in the dreadful Nazi concentration camp in Auschwitz. Frankl 's theory of the strength that love can have on a struggling person can be connected to Deo’s inner fight to find his way back to his love of helping other people with medicine.

Read More

Lois Tyson's 'You Are What You Own'

836 Words | 4 Pages

In Lois Tyson’s “You Are What You Own: A Marxist Reading of The Great Gatsby”, Tyson critiques the capitalist society of 1920s American life. Tyson claims that The Great Gatsby shows the irony of capitalism in its relationship to the American dream, because in the novel, the lower class never genuinely has a chance at obtaining the same wealth as the upper class, and the rich only became rich through illegal activities or family inheritance. Though the American dream allows anyone to become rich with hard work, it is revealed through Tyson’s analysis that the lower class of American society does not have the opportunity to obtain wealth equal to that of the upper class. Tyson starts by identifying the “valley of ashes” (70), an area littered

Read More

Going To Work By Nancy Mercado

781 Words | 4 Pages

On September 11, 2001, tragedy struck the city of New York. On that fateful day, two airplanes were hijacked by terrorists and flew straight into the twin towers. Each tower fell completely to the ground, taking thousands of lives with it and injuring thousands more. Not only did that day leave thousands of families without their loved ones, it also left an entire city and an entire country to deal with the aftermath of the destruction. Poet, Nancy Mercado, worries that one day people will forget that heartbreaking day.

Read More

Poem Analysis Of Alzheimer's By Kelly Cherry

1218 Words | 5 Pages

When the man arrives at home from the hospital, he begins to remember that “this is his house” (Cherry 15). In the poem, “Alzheimer’s,” Kelly Cherry expresses the confusions and difficulties a man with dementia struggles with in life. The poem explores the chaos of the man who comes home from the hospital and his conflicts with his memory loss. The speaker is close to the man and is frustrated with him at the beginning of the poem, but the speaker’s feeling toward the man eventually shifts to sadness. Caring for a person with Alzheimer’s disease can be painful and heartbreaking, though people need to understand that familiar circumstances and with family support can help the patients whose mind is gradually changing.

Read More

Life In Tuesdays With Morrie By Mitch Albom

1443 Words | 6 Pages

The human race perceives life in different ways. Based off that and your social status, you see life a certain manner. Morrie Schwartz had a distinct approach about life itself. His older life was told in a book written by Mitch Albom, tuesdays with Morrie, who also stars as one of Morrie’s students. Morrie was diagnosed with ALS, a terrible disease that impacts mobility and works its way up your body until you loose complete function.

Read More

Analysis Of The Other Wes Moore

1124 Words | 5 Pages

I live a life of considerable privilege. I am a white, upper middle class, straight, young adult, living a comfortable life. I have learned to recognize these facts, and thought I understood the meaning of my privilege; until I read this novel. The Other Wes Moore gave me a new perspective on the meaning of ‘privilege,’ and how it affects the workings of our society. This novel really opened my eyes to some of the troubles in this world, and how everyone has a story that isn’t seen on the surface.

Read More

More about Tracy Kidder's The Soul Of A New Machine

Open Document