I feel like a terrible person giving this book two stars… I’m sure Mr. Hawking has far more important things to do, think about, and write about than himself… and it shows in the book. One wonders why he bothered or why he didn’t hire a biographer to write a more detailed history instead of writing his own slim, surface-only autobiography. I’m sure, given the speed at which he works, this was still an impressive achievement, but as far as an informative biography of a fascinating person aimed at the reader, it fails to achieve depth or really deliver much actual concrete details. In that it descends into brief recaps of some of his scientific theories is also a bit of a problem – sure, these are things he worked on but with only the briefest historical context and, given the amount of space provided, it’s not well explained or diagrammed, unlike in his science books focused on his work (all of which are very good). This makes the structure of the book a problem – if you want details of his scientific theories, you’re reading the wrong book. If you want details of his life, the scientific theories don’t have context (or detail) to justify their inclusion. But if you remove them, an already slim volume becomes a pamphlet.

Again, I feel like I should give him a break under his circumstance, but as he says at the end, disabled people should concentrate on what they do well… and Hawking can think and write very well. But maybe he can’t – or more likely doesn’t care to – go into enough depth to make a more interesting biography. Perhaps he doesn’t feel his life is interesting enough or he just doesn’t want to talk about himself… which leaves me wondering why this book exists in its current form.