A Brief History of Time

By: Stephen Hawking

Narrated by: Michael Jackson

Length: 5 hrs and 46 mins

Publisher's summary

This landmark book is for those of us who prefer words to equations; this is the story of the ultimate quest for knowledge, the ongoing search for the secrets at the heart of time and space. Its author, Stephen W. Hawking, is arguably the greatest mind since Einstein. From the vantage point of the wheelchair, where he has spent the last 20 years trapped by Lou Gehrig's disease, Professor Hawking has transformed our view of the universe. A Brief History of Time is Hawking's classic introduction to today's most important scientific ideas about the cosmos. It is read here by the Emmy Award-winning host of The Michael Jackson Show on KABC-TV.

©1988 Stephen W. Hawking (P)2005 Phoenix Books, Inc.

Critic reviews

"A masterful summary of what physicists now think the world is made of and how it got that way." (The Wall Street Journal)

"Lively and provocative, Hawking clearly possesses a natural teacher's gift, easy, good-natured humor, and an ability to illustrate highly complex propositions with analogies plucked from daily life." (The New York Times)

Everything except narration was great!

The narrator would have done a great job if this was a novel. However certainly not for this scientific book. He would pass over the parts that needs thinking quickly while pause after trivial parts. Too much intonation for a scientific book to the point that it is disturbing one's concentration. I do not recommend this as an audio book at least not with this narrator.

#tagsgiving #sweepstakes

Very good

Hawking was obviously an amazing scientist, and this book goes into too much detail for me to remember, but enough to give me some understanding. Scattered throughout the book is his tongue in cheek sense of humor, making it entertaining as well as informative. He strikes a good balance between science and science history. I found it slightly too rapid to follow at times, so I think I will revisit this book in the future.

Humble, clear, fascinating

I thoroughly enjoyed this book. Stephen Hawking has a way of explaining very complicated physics that allows me to understand while I’m reading. He also acknowledges his own mistakes and takes a humble approach to scientific inquiry. He also acknowledges the limitations of science in answering the harder philosophical question of ‘why?’ This book was worth every minute of reading and rereading.

Easily Digestible Presentation of Complex Topics

Content - This is a "pop physics" classic. Fairly complex topics are covered in an entertaining and clear manner. There is a "leap" in the book in moving from the macro to the micro, but this isn't so much a function of the book, but of the science at this point.
Math isn't really needed, but a scientific mindset helps

Adaptation - as it is unabridged, there is little in the way of adaptation. The "voice" of the book is of a "lecture" type which translates well. There are figures in the printed work that help clarify things, but these are few and only minimally impact the experience

Narration - Solid. It is a fairly emotionally even subject and the reader doesn't attempt to "overdress" the text.
I have heard Hawking lectures read by Hawking and, sadly, the mechanical voice can be stressful to listen to at first (you do get used to it), but a professional human reader is easier

Second to none amongst science books!

Science has never been shown to me as interesting as it was in this book. Apart from all the scientific details, Stephan Hawking did a wonderful job to show the whole history of science since Aristotle until modern time. So much of the book must be read again, in slower pace so I thought I shall be looking for a hard copy as well. It's true that the reader dampened the quality of this as a whole. Yet, the content was so good that I was able to forget the performance aspect of the reader.
Would recommend the book to all age and all vocations.

A surprisingly subpar narration for such a classic

The material is captivating, but I can't understand how such a famous book could have ever been pushed through to audio publication with such awful narration. The narrator leaves strange pauses and accents odd words, especially pronouns like "I" and "my," giving the impression Hawking is being self-congratulatory when he's merely being factual. The worst, however, is Jackson's continual interjection of "uh" and "um" mid-sentence. What could that possibly have added? There's even one point where he says "neuron" instead of "neutron," pauses as though he noticed the mistake, then continues on -- were there no editors? This is a classic I've been meaning to read since I was a teenager, and ultimately, it's one I wish I would have read in print.

You may find it interesting

An average reader may not grasp a concept of a 26-dimensional space but there are more than a couple of things he can be amazed to learn from this book. Hawking delves pretty deep into relativity theory, quantum mechanics and some other current theories (as of 1988). Among topics covered are speculation (though not without solid scientific basis) on the origins of the universe, black holes and singularities.

Michael Jackson's narration is somewhat lax and a bit unprepared to say the least. But somehow it does not spoil the book. On the one hand Mr Jackson stumbles over words, mispronouces them (neutron/neuron, protons/Plutos?), pauses mid-sentence, hesitates, at times seems to be brooding over a previous paragraph and on the other hand he has a good voice and reads with genuine emotion. It is not often you hear a narrator actually laugh while they are reading something that was meant to amuse the listener.

If it does not put you off - give it a try, by all means.

great book, okay narrator.

The book was great, I stayed awake hours past what should have been my bed time unable to convince myself to close the app, even though the narrator was sub par.

Great Content Horrible Production

The content was superb and understandable. However, the production quality was so bad it was challenging to make it though the book. There seems to have been no effort in ensuring a quality performance. From listen to pages turn to awkward pauses where the performer seem to stumble, this sound need like the performer read the book while seated in front of a iPhone then immediately uploaded.

Great book however

Great book however, you may want to hear it more than once if you don't have a good background . Enjoy..