Reviews of Simon: The Genius in My Basement

Recent reviews and features:

Book of the Week in The Times and The Week

The Sunday Times:Alexander Masters and his eccentric landlord make an unexpectedly perfect combination in this glorious study of an oddball prodigy Daisy Goodwin writes that The Genius in my Basement is an 'astonishingly good book ... it takes courage to stand next to genius and Masters, to his credit, worries about doing justice to his subject. He shouldn't; his empathy, humour and occasional bursts of exasperation make him ideally suited for the task. It is an approach that Masters pioneered in Stuart: A Life backwards ....' Masters 'has taken me to the edge of pure mathematics and allowed me to look into the abyss. The Genius in My Basement is a glorious book: funny, surprising and completely sui generis.'

The Daily Mail:A life that doesn't add up: The Cambridge maths genius who is now a recluse living on tinned mackerel a double page spread, of an interview by Frances Hubbard.'Simon, it must be said, is a deeply endearing man.'

London Evening Standard:A man blasted by his own brilliance. '... this book is a complete success,' writes Nicholas Lezard. 'That is, in producing something that enlarges not only our understanding of Group Theory (Masters, although possessing a first-class degree in physics and applied mathematics, concedes that he is a speck in the distance compared with Norton), but something higher up in our priorities: an understanding of the human mind, and an enlargement of our sympathies.'

The Financial Times:Alexander Masters’ study of an eccentric mathematician is a worthy follow-up to an acclaimed debut 'This book has the magnetic power of the Sherlock Holmes stories'.

The Guardian: The Genius in My Basement by Alexander Masters - review. An unusual biography of a mathematician and public transport addict '... delightful – the bloggy, scrapbooky aspect, the kipple and backchat and disgusting food. In her still-unsurpassed The Last Samurai – another tale of childhood prodigiousness – the novelist Helen DeWitt imagines "the writers of the future" learning to do with words what Cézanne and Schoenberg were doing close on a century ago with painting and music, and in its best moments Masters's work has something of that excitement, something new and open and risky and humane.'

The Telegraph:Helen Brown is captivated by Alexander Masters' artful account of a mathematical genius obsessed with public transport, The Genius in my Basement. 'Masters is a biographer driven to unpick stereotypes and restore his subjects to their complex humanity with idiosyncratic wit, genuine compassion and refreshing bewilderment.'