Description
Book Synopsis''His clarity, wit and determination are evident, his understand and good humour moving'' New Scientist
My Brief History recounts Stephen Hawking's improbable journey, from his post-war London boyhood to his years of international acclaim and celebrity. Lavishly illustrated with rarely seen photographs, this concise, witty and candid account introduces readers to a Hawking rarely glimpsed in previous books: the inquisitive schoolboy whose classmates nicknamed him Einstein'; the jokester who once placed a bet with a colleague over the existence of a black hole; and the young husband and father struggling to gain a foothold in the world of academia.
Writing with characteristic humility and humour, Hawking opens up about the challenges that confronted him following his diagnosis of motor neurone disease aged twenty-one. Tracing his development as a thinker, he explains how the prospect of an early death urged him onwards through numerous intellectual breakthroughs, and talks about the genesis of his masterpiece A Brief History of Time one of the iconic books of the twentieth century.
Clear-eyed, intimate and wise, My Brief History opens a window for the rest of us into Hawking's personal cosmos.
''Read it for the personal nuggets . . . but above all, it''s worth reading for its message of hope'' Mail on Sunday
Trade ReviewStephen Hawking [has] a brain of enviable vastness, seeing and understanding things that lie way beyond most of us... His modesty is engaging * Daily Mail *
Hawking writes movingly... we hear his voice radiating directly from the black hole of his motor neuron disease, without the amplification and elaboration supplied by the co-authors with whom he wrote his last few books * Financial Times *
A concise, gleaming portrait * Nature *
Powerful... [his] brevity makes for a bold picture * Guardian *
Read it for the personal nuggets... But above all, it's worth reading for its message of hope * Mail on Sunday *
