Just read: A Madman Dreams of Turing Machines
Just completed Janna Levin's "A Madman Dreams of Turing Machines," about the lives of mathematicians Kurt Godel and Alan Turing.
The book does not really talk about their lives and their achievements, instead peeking into their psyche and their public persona -- Godel, a paranoid hypochondriac; Turing, weird and homosexual. The book moves through different points in their lives, and indeed has many gaps where their work was probably most renowned, and also interjects the author's life in the narrative.
The last mentioned was a turn-off, however, and I did fine by skipping the autobiographical portions.
For someone like me, who is interested in questions about reality, this book was a page turner.
Liked the writing style. For instance, the phrase, "like a tongue seeking out a sore tooth," still sticks in my mind!