My Brief History

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 One of the most brilliant theoretical physicists since Einstein, Professor Stephen Hawking was the former Lucasian Professor of Mathematics at the University of Cambridge. His bestselling publications included: A Brief History of Time, The Grand Design, A Briefer History of Time as well as a series of books for children, co-authored with his daughter Lucy Hawking, beginning with George's Secret Key to the Universe.