A Beautiful Mind

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What to expect

This is the powerful, dramatic biography of math genius John Nash, who overcame serious mental illness and schizophrenia to win the Nobel Prize. This book is the inspiration for the Academy Award-winning film starring Russell Crowe and Jennifer Connelly and directed by Ron Howard.

“How could you, a mathematician, believe that extraterrestrials were sending you messages?” the visitor from Harvard asked the West Virginian with the movie-star looks and Olympian manner. “Because the ideas I had about supernatural beings came to me the same way my mathematical ideas did,” came the answer. “So I took them seriously.”Thus begins the true story of John Nash, the mathematical genius, who was already a legend by age thirty, when he slipped into madness, and who—thanks to the selflessness of a beautiful woman and the loyalty of the mathematics community—emerged after decades of ghostlike existence to win a Nobel Prize for triggering the game theory revolution.

The inspiration for an Academy Award–winning movie, Sylvia Nasar’s now-classic biography is a drama about the mystery of the human mind, triumph over adversity, and the healing power of love.

Critics Review

u201cTells a moving story and offers a remarkable look into the arcane world of mathematics and the tragedy of madness.u201d

New York Times Book Review

u201cA deeply moving love story, an account of the centrality of human relationships in a world of nightmare and genius.u201d

New Englandu00a0Journal of Medicine

“Superbly written and eminently fascinating.”

Bostonu00a0Globe

u201cHighly recommended.u201d

Amazon.com

u201cNasaru2026is equally adept at probing the puzzle of schizophrenia and giving a non-technical context for Nash's mathematical and scientific ideas.u201d

Publishers Weekly

“Nasar tells a story of triumph, tragedy, and enduring love.” 

u00a0Library Journalu00a0 u00a0 u00a0 u00a0 u00a0 u00a0 u00a0u00a0

u201cRarely has the fragility of the boundary separating genius from madness been illustrated with more compelling insight.u201d

Booklist

u201cA brilliant booku2026an important contribution to American intellectual history.u201d

David Herbert Donald,u00a0New York Timesu00a0bestselling author

u201cA splendid booku2026remarkable for its sympathetic insights into both genius and schizophrenia.u201d

Oliver Sacks, New York Times bestselling author

u201cAn eloquent, heartbreaking, and heartwarming tale, told with elegance and assurance of a major writer.u201d

Timothy Ferris, author ofu00a0Coming of Age in the Milky Way

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