A Beautiful Mind

De: Sylvia Nasar

Narrado por: Anna Fields

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.

©1998 Sylvia Nasar (P)1999 Blackstone Audio, Inc.

Reseñas de la Crítica

"A Beautiful Mind 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)
"Nasar tells a story of triumph, tragedy, and enduring love." ( Library Journal)

Very... Thorough

That author spent a very long time on irrelevant topics, I very much doubt one has to know, say, the entire history of Princeton University to understand John Nash's story. Uses the word 'ostensibly' five times a chapter.

Good story, bad production

The story is interesting, on both human and intellectual levels, but the production quality detracted from my enjoyment. The production was poorly cut and edited, and the text repeated...repeatedly! In fact, the repeated sections became so frequent, I began to think I might be losing my mind! Recommendation: read the book, watch the movie, or find a different audio version. The story is worth the effort.

Highly recommended

The book was written in a satisfying manner. The talk about John's work, personal life, and the environment he lived in, were well balanced.

Several parts repeated

I loved the way the author tells us the story, however the audio is not good, there are several parts where the audio repeat fragments of the book and after the second time keeps going with the next fragment. I screenshoted some of these mistakes in case someone wants to correct this.

Not my normal read

My usual books started as epic fantasies. As of the last year and a half I have been mixing in many spiritual books. I bought this book because it was on sale a few months back. Needless to say it didn’t really fit with my normal reads so I sat on it for over two months. Down to my final two unread books in my library, I decided to start reading.
The first couple of chapters take a little while building a portrait. They are slow but necessary. I don’t know when it happened but somewhere along the line I began enjoying it and found myself wanting to keep listening even though I had arrived at work.
I admit I have a bit of an obsessive personality but truly believe Nasar has put together a good story based upon the true life of a man that most would have looked at and thought a pompous mathematician. His story really is thought provoking and Nasar tries to give you as good an idea as possible to how important he was to mathematical research throughout much of the mid to late 20th century.

Good Story, Above average overall

Above average I would say but some of the math ideas and game theory explanations were complex to a regular guy such as myself. The story of Nash itself was interesting and held my attention. If you understand some of Nash's ideas or are familiar with his work then I would say this book is a must, and you shouldn't be reading my reviews anyway. I gave it 3 of five stars

Moving and technically challenging

Which character – as performed by Anna Fields – was your favorite?

Her narration was excellent overall, with no particular character being better than the others.

Any additional comments?

This is a standout biography that manages to combine some fairly detailed discussions of mathematics as a field, the scientific milieu of the 20th century, and mental illness and treatment in the 20th century, with a meticulous exploration of Nobel winner John Forbes Nash's life. The book is wonderful and the depth and breadth of the interviews conducted to make it possible is astounding. Sensitively written, but unflinchingly honest, this is a book well worth the time.

Edit this recording!

It is unacceptable for an Audible book to be so terribly edited. There are numerous instances of text being reread. Not one, not two, but many, many times. Stop offering this book until this is fixed!

long book but worth the read

Sylvia does a great job of filling in many details and setting the scene for each part of the story. If I hadn't read this book I never would have realized just how wrong the movie adaptation was.

Nash had his first episode when he was 30 (long after he was going to school or working at Rand) and he never had visual hallucinations. He continued to work and publish throughout his illness and without medications. He refused meds after 1970 and experienced a "spontaneous remission" aka he got his symptoms under control and became functional and productive again all on his own. He also never posed a danger to his son—he wasn't even in the same country when he son was a baby. So basically Hollywood got everything wrong.

An honest examination of history is necessary to inform us for our own circumstances, and that's exactly what this book is. It's the TRUE story of a genius who suffered from a debilitating illness and ultimately recovered from it through his own volition.

Great reading!!

I especially enjoyed the reading by Anna Fields. The story was fascinating enough and Anna really made it come alive.