Rating: 
Summary: A Fantastic Journey
Review: That decidedly unique journey we call life is often filled with tensions and emotions which are a result of those tensions. These things are the spices of life unless they loom so large in relation to our logical mind that they become bitter waters. A trial it is, then, to have tensions so great or emotions so compelling that one is unable to live a 'normal' life. It is interesting to see inside that space to which the logical mind is relegated when all other spaces are filled with the darkness of mental illness; what a luxury, and such a gift it is, this documenting of those places which we dare not enter alone. This book acts as our guide to and from that other reality, as we peer out cautiously from the safe haven of our armchairs into the surrounding unfaththomable darkness. We readers are given a sense of what life with an unrelenting mental illness is like. The inspiration for us all is in the character's finding of the light and the regaining of the control of that dark side of the mind. Another such journey from darkness into light is told by Tracy Harris in her book, 'The Music of Madness'. In Ms. Harris' case the journey is of a brilliant Musician whose life deconstructs because of Mental illness and its tormentors. It is at once chilling, fascinating, frightening, and like Nash she triumphs through sheer strength of will. Both stories are inspirational, and both end up letting the reader feel that he or she just might have hope after all, no matter how high is his mountain, or how deep her sea.
Rating:
Summary: Captivating Story of a Tortured Genius
Review: This biography of John Nash was the basis for the movie A Beautiful Mind (which is a wonderful film, go see it). Nash was awarded the Nobel prize in economics in 1994 for his contributions to game theory. He also suffered from schizophrenia. Of course as a psych major I am intrigued by the stigma associated with mental disorder that is prevalent in this book. Nash did most of his work in the 50s and 60s. We still don't know very much about mental disorders and people knew even less when Nash was diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia. Although this book is occasionally dry with talk about specific mathematic equations and technical theories, you don't need to understand all that stuff to really enjoy the book. I loved it. I saw the movie first, which was definitely a good thing because the book and the movie are a lot different. Although the movie strays quite a bit from the actual facts and events of Nash's life, I think it still captures the essence of his experiences and portrays him as the "crazy" genius that he was.
Rating:
Summary: Compelling
Review: My reaction to seeing the film was to wonder what got left out. So I bought the book. And what got left out of the movie was just about everything. The screenplay is a fantasy, prettied up for public consumption. Granted, film is another medium, one in which compression and simplification dominate. A book allows for expansion, in-depth explanation and exploration of character, all of which author Nasar delivers with meticulous research, effective prose, and sympathy. As someone who was beyond dismal in mathematics in school, I pay Nasar the greatest compliment in saying that she managed to make the incomprehensible accessible to me. More importantly, this is a book on the human level about friendship, loyalty and the toll mental illness takes on everyone involved. Her portrait of Nash is clear-eyed, unvarnished, and all the more fascinating because of it. That a man might be possessed of a beautiful mind and yet have little to no social graces is a difficult concept to make palatable. Yet she succeeds in making us care about this man, in spite of his extraordinary personal flaws and failures. It is not easy reading, but it is important, worthwhile reading for the insights it offers not only into the arcane realm of the mathematical mind but also into the state of a mind altered by mental circuitry gone awry. Most highly recommended--particularly for those who've seen the film and, like me, wondered about the truth of John Nash.
Rating:
Summary: A must -read, goes where the movie does not...
Review: First off, I have to admit I loved the movie and credit it with getting me to read this book. After reading this book, however, I realized that the movie (as absorbing as it was) left out so many important details about John Nash's early and later years, details which make all the difference in understanding the richness and complexity of his life....his childhood as an eccentric, if gifted, child, his connection to two different women (and the two children he had) and the oddness of those relationships.
The author also reveals that one of Nash's children suffers from acute schizophrenia and writes about the similarities and differences between his illness and that of his father. If you want to go beyond just the brief intro to Nash's life that the movie portrayed, be sure to get a copy of this one.
Rating:
Summary: Not your typical biography
Review: "A Beautiful Mind" was an excellent read. The story of John Nash is a compelling one, and Nasar does a good job recounting all of his highs and lows. The story was a balanced one and showed all of Nash's good and horribly low points. Nasar showed good objectivity and an obvious respect for her subject.
Rating: 
Summary: The Airhead version
Review: Biology is sometimes described as science for people who can't do maths. This book a mathematical biography for those who can't count to ten. I bought it to read on on a flight from Denver to London, and after an hour had tossed it back in my bag. It appears to have been written by someone who thought that her readership couldn't handle anything beyond Barbara Cartland descriptions of people: 'Morgenstern, a tall imposing expatriate from Austria ... Tall, darkly handsome "with cool grey eyes and a sensual mouth" Morgie cut an elegant figure on horseback'. There is no attempt whatever to explain what any of the mathematicians did. The core theorem of von Neuman and Morgenstern's 'Theory of Games' is the min-max theorem, a fairly simple, and easily explained, concept which lends itself well to examples, but Nasar doesn't even begin to explain, merely referring to it four times. As far as I could be bothered to read, this book is a trivial collection of not very interesting facts and made-up conversations: Nash was a schizophrenic, OK, there are quite a few people like that, Nash was gay, right, there a plenty of gay people, they aren't intrinsically interesting. He won the Nobel prize, wow, great! Tell me what for and make me work hard to understand what he did that was so outstanding ... oh you aren't going to bother, so why did you bother to write this book? My immediate reaction was to contrast this with another book about a weird, gay mathematician, Alan Turing, written by Andrew Hodges. By contrast, Hodges has written a dazzling, dense and fascinating explanation of Turing's life and work. I understood that Turing was gay, unconcerned about it (even though this was probably the incidental cause of his suicide) but heartbroken about the loss of a friend in early life, which Hodges weaves into the narrative in a completely coherent way. Hodges tackles Turing's mathematical work head on, dumbing it down for the non-PhD reader (like me) but leaving nothing essential out (and making it a seriously challenging, and wonderfully rewarding read). By contrast, Nasar lobs in short sections of incomprehensible mathematical jargon, without the least attempt to explain: "Nash had learned from Nirenberg the importance of extending the Holder estimates for second-order ecliptic equations with two variables and irregular coefficients to higher dimensions". This is not an explanation, it's an attempt to impress with esoteric terms (what's a Holder estimate?). In reality, it's the sign of an incompetent author who lacks either the confidence or (more likely) the ability and understanding to convey either the content or significance of the material. Hence we fall back on what colour Nash's car was, and the Nobel prize award section seems to consist mainly of arguments about the validity of a Nobel prize in mathematics. This is a feeble piece of work, and if you want to find out anything about Nash's mathematical ability and work, you will have to look elsewhere. I note the author is a professor of journalism. It fits.
Rating: 
Summary: No Russell Crowe
Review: There's a picture of Russell Crowe on the cover of A BEAUTIFUL MIND, something that may have been rather off-putting to some. I know I wouldn't have read it if I hadn't received it for Christmas. Sylvia Nasar also spends an inordinate amount of time telling the reader how movie-star handsome and how powerfully built John Nash was. ... There are lots of pictures; let the reader decide.
As I was reading this book, I kept thinking of Richard Wagner. Wagner was certainly a musical genius, but supposedly left a lot to be desired as a human being. Most people would excuse Wagner, though, because he was an undeniable genius. John Nash was supposedly a mathematical genius. He won the Nobel prize in economics for something called game theory. He was not a very nice man. He seduces a young woman, has a child with her, then refuses to marry her or support their son. He's conceited, a lackluster teacher, and a closet homosexual. But then just as he approaches thirty, he contracts schizophrenia. He's sent to sanitariums, undergoes insulin shock therapy, has a short remission and then a relapse that lasts something like thirty years. The suspense lies in the fact that Nash was somehow able to cure himself and the reader wants to know how he went about doing that. Paranoid schizophrenia is supposed to be an incurable disease, after all. Nasar does a credible job disputing that. She cites studies that peg the number at something like eight percent who were eventually cured.
Nasar is a former economics correspondent for The New York Times, but she's no Carl Sagen or Machio Kaku or even Stephen Hawking. They manage to make their arcane topics palatable to laymen. A BEAUTIFUL MIND, on the other hand, is littered with algebraic formulae that make about as much sense as Egyptian hieroglyphics. The reader also has no idea how game theory applies to economics until Nasar finally gets around to it in Chapter 49: "...in the world of megamergers, big government, massive foreign direct investment, and wholesale privatization, where the game is played by a handful of players, each taking into account the others' actions, each pursuing his own best strategies, game theory has come to the fore." She then goes on to illustrate how this works, as Al Gore auctions off airwaves for new wireless gadgets. Supposedly, without Nash's theory, the auction would have resulted in utter chaos.
We also get an intriguing look inside the selection process for the Nobel prize, not at all as civilized as one might expect.
Rating: 
Summary: If you've seen the movie, you must read the book
Review: Unlike the movie, this is the complete story of the amazing life of John Nash. The movie is very enjoyable on in its own terms, but it is a highly edited version of the real story that is so thoroughly examined in the book. See the movie first, then read this well-written and very well researched book. Sylvia Nasar does an excellent job of explaining Nash's very esoteric work to the layman, and she is also very good at describing the insular and peculiar world of academic mathematics. Nash's story is compelling on its own terms, and Nasar wisely sticks to the facts. My only complaint about the book is that the cast of characters is so large that it is very difficult to keep up with them. Nasar is very thorough in describing all the mathematicians who knew or worked with Nash, including descriptions of the work of each one. While it makes for an excellent "who's who" of 20th century mathmaticians, many of the esteemed mathmaticians are only tangential to Nash's life and spending so much time on them bogs down the story. Nevertheless, it's hard to criticize an author for being too historically thorough. All in all, an intereresting and informative book.
Rating:
Summary: A dissenting view
Review: It looks like everyone loves this book and the movie will probably gather all the oscars, but I don't like the book and I will not see the movie. I have been reading a number of Math books lately (In Code, The Code Book, Fermat's Enigms, ...) and all have been 5 star. I guess they spoiled me. This book is so boring that I gave up about 3/4 through. The author gets diverted into telling a multi page bio about every person that John Nash ever met. Whenever the author begins to discuss one of his contributions she ends up quoting someone else' paper. I don't think she understands any of the math. She certainly can't describe it in her own words. As far as John Nash, Nobel prize or not he is not worthy of being written about. None of his Math accomplishments could make up for his disturbed behavior. John Nash is to Math as Mike Tyson is to boxing.
Rating:
Summary: A beautiful mind, a annoying man
Review: While reading the book I kept wanting to like Mr. Nash. I couldn't, he seemed to be an annoying prig for most of the book. Always trying to show off. I slogged through the book hoping but even the ending was tepid, 'glad he got the Nobel so he could get a credit card.' There was not enough in the book to show why he deserved the Nobel, more of an 'it was important'. Some things were explored with great detail and other parts were glossed over, a very uneven read. This is one book I will not recommend to other people. I can only wonder how the movie was able to dredge enough interesting things together.
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