A Beautiful Mind (book)

Infobox Book
name = A Beautiful Mind
title_orig = A beautiful mind: a biography of John Forbes Nash, Jr., winner of the Nobel Prize in economics, 1994
translator =


image_caption =
author = Sylvia Nasar
illustrator =
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country = United States of America
language = English
series =
subject =
genre = Biography
publisher = Simon & Schuster
release_date = 1998
english_release_date =
media_type = Paper Back
pages = 459
isbn = ISBN 0-68481-906-6
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"A Beautiful Mind" is an unauthorized biography of Nobel Prize-winning economist and mathematician John Forbes Nash by Sylvia Nasar, a "New York Times" economics correspondent. It inspired the 2001 film by the same name.

Starting with his childhood, the book covers Nash's years at Princeton and MIT, his work for the RAND Corporation, his family and his struggle with schizophrenia. It ends with Nash being awarded the "Nobel Prize in Economics" in 1994. The book is a detailed description of many aspects of Nash's life, and a close examination of his personality and motivations, and gives an interesting perspective on the stresses placed on personal and professional relationships by severe mental illness.

The book won the 1998 National Book Critics Circle Award for biography, was nominated for the Pulitzer Prize for biography, and was shortlisted for the Rhône-Poulenc Prize in 1999 [ [http://royalsociety.org/bookspage.asp?id=6372 Prizes for Science Books previous winners and shortlists] , The Royal Society website] . The book also appeared on the "New York Times"' bestseller list for biography. It is particularly notable for describing Nash's genius as well as his struggle with the mental illness.