'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
