A Beautiful Mind

Author Sylvia Nasar
Narrator Anna Fields
Publisher Blackstone Publishing
Run Time 18 hours and 12 minutes
Format Audio
Genre Abnormal psychology, Biography: general, Biography: science, technology and medicine, Mathematical physics, Mathematics.

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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

“Tells a moving story and offers a remarkable look into the arcane world of mathematics and the tragedy of madness.”
New York Times Book Review
“A deeply moving love story, an account of the centrality of human relationships in a world of nightmare and genius.”
New England Journal of Medicine
“Superbly written and eminently fascinating.”
Boston Globe
“Highly recommended.”
Amazon.com
“Nasar…is equally adept at probing the puzzle of schizophrenia and giving a non-technical context for Nash’s mathematical and scientific ideas.”
Publishers Weekly
“Nasar tells a story of triumph, tragedy, and enduring love.”
Library Journal
“Rarely has the fragility of the boundary separating genius from madness been illustrated with more compelling insight.”
Booklist
“A brilliant book…an important contribution to American intellectual history.”
David Herbert Donald, New York Times bestselling author
“A splendid book…remarkable for its sympathetic insights into both genius and schizophrenia.”
Oliver Sacks, New York Times bestselling author
“An eloquent, heartbreaking, and heartwarming tale, told with elegance and assurance of a major writer.”
Timothy Ferris, author of Coming of Age in the Milky Way

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