"A Beautiful Mind" is a story of romance and sadness. It narrates the life of a mathematics genius John Forbes Nash who overcomes his mental illness and is awarded with the prestigious Nobel Prize. Don’t worry, the story of "A Beautiful Mind" is not about mathematics. Sylvia Nasar, the author, deliberately ignores the hard and difficulty in understanding mathematical theory and focuses on John Nash’s illness and the real-life dilemmas he faces. At the age of thirty, Nash was suffering from paranoid schizophrenia, a disease he had suffered for three decades and lived in a complicated and difficult life. In the 1950s and 1960s, the society had little understanding or tolerance for mental illness. John’s wife Alicia, has to make the decision of whether to stay by his side to face the hostile community towards mental illness or to move on by her own.

Apart from telling a touching romantic story of Nash and his wife, the story also narrates Nash’s ups and downs in life and how he survives from terrible illness and his contribution in the evolving history of economics. The book also points out a message that no matter how hopeless a situation may seem, there will be an exit to let you get out to rejoin life and be happy again.

"A Beautiful Mind" won the awards of National Books Critical Circle for Biography and Pulitzer Prize in Biography and is well worth your time. By the way, audio book of "A Beautiful Mind" is also available at the Hong Kong Central Library.