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Biography Books listed at
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A Beautiful Mind
Nasar, Sylvia
ISBN: 0571212921
Faber 1999
8vo softcover 459pp index, b/w illus. very good. Amazon.comnStories of famously eccentric Princetonians abound--such as that of chemist Hubert Alyea, the model for The Absent-Minded Professor, or Ralph Nader, said to have had his own key to the library as an undergraduate. Or the "Phantom of Fine Hall," a figure many students had seen shuffling around the corridors of the math and physics building wearing purple sneakers and writing numerology treatises on the blackboards. The Phantom was John Nash, one of the most brilliant mathematicians of his generation, who had spiraled into schizophrenia in the 1950s. His most important work had been in game theory, which by the 1980s was underpinning a large part of economics. When the Nobel Prize committee began debating a prize for game theory, Nash's name inevitably came up--only to be dismissed, since the prize clearly could not go to a madman. But in 1994 Nash, in remission from schizophrenia, shared the Nobel Prize in economics for work done some 45 years previously.nnEconomist and journalist Sylvia Nasar has written a biography of Nash that looks at all sides of his life. She gives an intelligent, understandable exposition of his mathematical ideas and a picture of schizophrenia that is evocative but decidedly unromantic. Her story of the machinations behind Nash's Nobel is fascinating and one of very few such accounts available in print (the CIA could learn a thing or two from the Nobel committees). This highly recommended book is indeed "a story about the mystery of the human mind, in three acts: genius, madness, reawakening." --Mary Ellen Curtin--This text refers to the nnnnHardcovernedition.nnFrom Publishers WeeklynNasar has written a notable biography of mathematical genius John Forbes Nash (b. 1928), a founder of game theory, a RAND Cold War strategist and winner of a 1994 Nobel Prize in economics. She charts his plunge into paranoid schizophrenia beginning at age 30 and his spontaneous recovery in the early 1990s after decades of torment. He attributes his remission to will power; he stopped taking antipsychotic drugs in 1970 but underwent a half-dozen involuntary hospitalizations. Born in West Virginia, the flamboyant mathematical wizard rubbed elbows at Princeton and MIT with Einstein, John von Neumann and Norbert Wiener. He compartmentalized his secret personal life, shows Nasar, hiding his homosexual affairs with colleagues from his mistress, a nurse who bore him a son out of wedlock, while he also courted Alicia Larde, an MIT physics student whom he married in 1957. Their son, John, born in 1959, became a mathematician and suffers from episodic schizophrenia. Alicia divorced Nash in 1963, but they began living together again as a couple around 1970. Today Nash, whose mathematical contributions span cosmology, geometry, computer architecture and international trade, devotes himself to caring for his son. Nasar, an economics correspondent for the New York Times, is equally adept at probing the puzzle of schizophrenia and giving a nontechnical context for Nash's mathematical and scientific ideas. nCopyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc.--This text refers to the nnnnHardcovernedition.
Price: $15.00 (AUD)
Book Number: 35943 Bookseller: Dial a Book
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A certain style: Beatrice Davis, a literary life
Kent, Jacqueline
ISBN: 0143000675
Ringwood, Vic. Penguin Putnam 2001
8vo softcover. 344pp index, b/w illus. very good. Betrice Davis was this country's most acclaimed book editor, the backroom girl of Australian literature. As general editor at Angus and Robertson she discovered and nurtured the talents of countless writers including Thea Astley, Mile Franklin, Xavier Herbert and Hal Porter.
Price: $18.00 (AUD)
Book Number: 45195 Bookseller: Dial a Book
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A Glorious Fame - The Life of Margaret Cavendish, Duchess of Newcastle 1623-1673
Kathleen Jones
ISBN: 0747505675
Bloomsbury 1990
8vo. Papeback. 192pp. Very good, light toning of pages. Index. Illustrated with b&w plates. Magaret Cavendish was the first woman to write specifically for publication. Writing in the turbulent days of the Civil War and after, she was a remarkable woman who masked her shyness with an extravagant public persona and fantastic costumes she designed herself. Renowned in her day, Samuel Pepys queued with the crowds in Whitehall to see her arrive at Court and John Evelyn wrote of 'the extraordinary fanciful habit and garb and discourse of teh Duchess'.
Price: $15.00 (AUD)
Book Number: 36769 Bookseller: Dial a Book
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A Glorious Fame - The Life of Margaret Cavendish, Duchess of Newcastle 1623-1673
Kathleen Jones
Bloomsbury 1990
8vo. Papeback. 192pp. Very good, light toning of pages. Index. Illustrated with b&w plates. Magaret Cavendish was the first woman to write specifically for publication. Writing in the turbulent days of the Civil War and after, she was a remarkable woman who masked her shyness with an extravagant public persona and fantastic costumes she designed herself. Renowned in her day, Samuel Pepys queued with the crowds in Whitehall to see her arrive at Court and John Evelyn wrote of 'the extraordinary fanciful habit and garb and discourse of teh Duchess'.
Price: $15.00 (AUD)
Book Number: 39607 Bookseller: Dial a Book
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A Letter to Sophie: From Her Mum and Dad's Private Diaries
Martin, Carolyn
ISBN: 1741666732
Random House Australia April 1, 2009
8vo softcover 292pp fine. Sophie Delezio has been through more than most of us could imagine. Trapped under a burning car in her childcare centre, resulting in burns to eighty per cent of her body and multiple amputations; a long path to recovery followed by a near-fatal accident on a pedestrian crossing soon after her fifth birthday.18/12/03nPrincess, your lips were red today! What beautiful lips... You are a miracle to have survived your serious injuries this long and I am so proud of you. My darling, we are taking just one hour at a time and you have survived your second serious operation since Monday afternoon's accident. You are still in critical condition and we hope and pray that you make it one more day.nn28/05/06 nI feel a lot calmer and mildly euphoric - our hospital stay is coming to an end. I'm also scared. The scared, lonely parent of a child having an operation on Friday, hoping that all goes well. Laying trust in the hands of the surgeons and anaesthetic staff and feeling that I wanted to take all of the fear and pain away from my little girl.nn29/11/06 nA better day today but started off sad, with Soph just crying, I couldn't make her feel better. I think each operation brings with it memories of so many ops before. But you meet some amazing families and extraordinary children in these walls. I hope we give them hope and in some small way make a difference to their day.nnSophie Delezio has been through more than most of us could imagine. Trapped under a burning car in her childcare centre, resulting in burns to eighty per cent of her body and multiple amputations; a long path to recovery followed by a near-fatal accident on a pedestrian crossing soon after her fifth birthday. With her beautiful smile and unquenchable spirit, Sophie has become a beacon of hope and inspiration in Australia and beyond. Now Sophie's parents, Ron and Carolyn, invite us into their world. nnThrough their private journals Ron and Carolyn reveal a searingly intimate portrait of their life - from the day of Sophie's first horrific accident, to the present and their never-ending challenge to balance Sophie's care with their life together as a family. nnSophie has faced death twice before the age of six; she has had innumerable operations over the past five years; her need for special care is intense and lifelong. It is an unthinkably terrifying scenario - yet the Delezio family have not only survived, they have somehow managed to offer hope and joy to others in the process.
Price: $15.00 (AUD)
Book Number: 47966 Bookseller: Dial a Book
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A Life Less Ordinary
Halder, Baby
ISBN: 0670071188
Penguin 2007
8vo softcover 241pp near fine. Born in West Bengal, Baby is abandoned by her mother at the age of four, married at twelve to a voilent man, and a mother herself at thirteen. When her husband's abuse escalates, Baby flees with her children and begins a life as a domestic servant, only to find herself the victim of further abuse, this time at the hands of her various employers.
Price: $12.00 (AUD)
Book Number: 47986 Bookseller: Dial a Book
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