Table of Contents: Louisa May Alcott - A Personal Biography

Author: Susan Cheever
Publisher/Year: Simon and Schuster, 2010
Synopsis: Louisa May Alcott never intended to write Little Women. She had dismissed her publisher’s pleas for such a novel. Written out of necessity to support her family, the book had an astounding success that changed her life, a life which turned out very differently from that of her beloved heroine Jo March.

In Louisa May Alcott, Susan Cheever, the acclaimed author of American Bloomsbury, returns to Concord, Massachusetts, to explore the life of one of its most iconic residents. Based on extensive research, journals, and correspondence, Cheever’s biography chronicles all aspects of Alcott’s life, from the fateful meeting of her parents to her death, just two days after that of her father. She details Bronson Alcott’s stalwart educational vision, which led the Alcotts to relocate each time his progressive teaching went sour; her unsuccessful early attempts at serious literature, including Moods, which Henry James panned; her time as a Civil War nurse, when she contracted pneumonia and was treated with mercury-laden calomel, which would affect her health for the rest of her life; and her vibrant intellectual circle of writers and reformers, idealists who led the charge in support of antislavery, temperance, and women’s rights.

Alcott’s independence defied the conventional wisdom, and her personal choices and literary legacy continue to inspire generations of women. A fan of Little Women from the age of twelve, and a distinguished author in her own right, Cheever brings a unique perspective to Louisa May Alcott’s life as a woman, a daughter, and a working writer.

What Others Have To Say
The A.V. Club
"Alcott remains a little cold and aloof throughout Cheever’s biography. While she wasn’t necessarily a snuggly figure, Cheever might have done better to emphasize the impact Alcott’s work made on her."

The Washington Post
"Cheever is a lively and likable writer, but she doesn't add anything new to what we already know about Alcott's life."

 Kirkus Reviews
"Alcott was able to exemplify her belief that an unmarried woman could be intelligent, successful and, perhaps more importantly, happy. Throughout the narrative, Cheever allows Alcott's complex humanity to reveal itself slowly, drawing the reader into her iconic life. Lively and astute."

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Table of Contents: A Beautiful Mind

Author: Sylvia Nasar
Publisher/Year: Simon & Schuster, 1998
Synopsis: 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 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 and world acclaim.

What Others Have To Say
Salon
"Instead of facile theories, the reader enjoys wonder and astonishment -- frightened and intrigued by the intimate juxtaposition of genius and mental illness in a single beautiful mind."

Entertainment Weekly
"Nash's life is as rich and troubled as one would expect from a genius, and Nasar doesn't shy away from her subject's complexity -- or his faults."

The New York Times
"[Nasar] has a special knack for recreating the atmosphere of places like Fine Hall, and for thumbnail sketches of the characters who march through these pages, including many giants of 20th-century mathematics."

The New England Journal of Medicine
"Nasar has written an intriguing account of a fascinating man, of a "beautiful" mind, and of terrible madness. She has also written a deeply moving love story, an account of the centrality of human relationships in a world of nightmare and genius."