Reviews
“[A Beautiful Mind] might be compared to a Rembrandt’s portrait, filled with somber shadows and radiant light effects … superbly written and eminently fascinating … simply a beautiful book.” –The Boston Globe
“Reads like a fine novel.” –The New York Times
“Powerfully affecting … a three-handkerchief read.” –Wall Street Journal
“A Beautiful Mind tells a moving story and offers a remarkable look into the arcane world of mathematics and the tragedy of madness.” –The New York Times Book Review
“A fascinating overview of [Nash’s] life and the intellectual history of his times … a wonderfully absorbing puzzle.” –The Washington Post Book World
“A deeply moving love story.” –The New England Journal of Medicine
“This dense, carefully researched work is also, unexpectedly, a poetical love and coming-of-age story.” –The Chicago Tribune
“A fascinating account … It represents a staggering feat of writing and reporting, and includes an unprecedented look at the inner workings of the Nobel Prize committee.” –Business Week
“Absolutely fascinating … this superb book.” –Slate
“A triumph of intellectual biography . . . The fact that a man capable of conceiving a nuaned theory of rationality could then descent into madness gives A Beautiful Mind an exquisite sense of dramatic tension.” –Newsday
“A ‘must read’, with something for everyone … [a] first-rate biography.” –New Scientist
“In her [Nasar’s] hands Nash’s tale is profoundly sad, yet redemptive, altering one’s view of both the world at large and the even more mysterious inner world of the mind.” –Worth magazine
“The parabolic arc of an American genius … superbly and thrillingly limned.” –Mirabella
“[Nasar] is a highly talented interviewer and in some cases seems to unearth material far beyond what one might expect. She gives detailed descriptions … even for the 1994 Nobel prize in economics-deliberations that were so explosive that they led to a radical restructuring of the prize.” –Notices of the American Mathematical Society
“Instead of facile theories, the reader enjoys wonder and astonishment – frightened and intrigued by the intimate juxtaposition of genius and mental illness in a single beautiful mind.” –Salon
“Rarely has the fragility of the boundary separating genius from madness been illustrated with more compelling insight than in this biography. … Nasar tells the story of a great ind broken and hten healed with subtle sympathy, which will touch any reader who understand what is means to hope – or to fear.” –Booklist
“An engrossing, ultimately uplifting book for all libraries.” –Library Journal
“It is, on one level, an in-depth look at this mysterious figure and his milieu and, on another level, a meditation on the nature of genius and madness. … Impressively researched and detailed.” –Kirkus Reviews
“Nasar has written a notable biography. … [She] is equally adept at probing the puzzle of schizophrenia and giving a nontechnical context for Nash’s mathematical and scientific ideas.” –Publishers Weekly