My Brief History - Hardcover

Hawking, Stephen

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0345535286 ISBN 13: 9780345535283

Publisher: Bantam, 2013

Synopsis

NATIONAL BESTSELLER

Stephen Hawking has dazzled readers worldwide with a string of bestsellers exploring the mysteries of the universe. Now, for the first time, perhaps the most brilliant cosmologist of our age turns his gaze inward for a revealing look at his own life and intellectual evolution.

My Brief History recounts Stephen Hawking's improbable journey, from his postwar 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 particular black hole; and the young husband and father struggling to gain a foothold in the world of physics and cosmology.

Writing with characteristic humility and humor, Hawking opens up about the challenges that confronted him following his diagnosis of ALS at age twenty-one. Tracing his development as a thinker, he explains how the prospect of an early death urged him onward 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.

About this title

Review:

"Stephen 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)

"Stephen Hawking [has] a brain of enviable vastness, seeing and understanding things that lie way beyond most of us... His modesty is engaging"

"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"

"A concise, gleaming portrait"

"Powerful... [his] brevity makes for a bold picture"

"Read it for the personal nuggets... But above all, it's worth reading for its message of hope"

Book Description:

The extraordinary personal autobiography of the world's most famous scientist, written solely and exclusively by Stephen Hawking.

About this edition

• Publisher: Bantam
• Publication date: 2013
• ISBN 10: 0345535286
• ISBN 13: 9780345535283
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 144