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)

Time through Gravity

Excellent narration. Very well structured. I was slightly begining to comprehend, uncertainty boundary, enthropy, string theory (1960)(1984), and then at tachyon speed down into the rabbit hole. Enjoyed the knowledge.

Worst performance ever

This is the worst, most distracting reading of a book I have encountered on audible. I felt like a paid for a libravox recording. Narrator appears to not have pre-read anything. He Mispronounces both common and technical words, emphasizes the wrong part of sentences, laughs at the authors jokes. Sometimes after making an error in reading a sentences he will repeat the entire sentence, sometimes he doesn’t even bother doing that. Turning pages are clearly audible. For a book written by a disabled person I find it shocking that such a haphazard recording would be made rendering it almost inaccessible to the vision impaired.

Background needed

Any additional comments?

You really need to have a little background on the topic to understand this book fully. If you have that, I'm sure it's probably a lot more interesting.

An Excellent Primer

It's denser than I expected for a book intended for the lay person (listening to someone listing off sub atomic positions isn't the most compelling experience) but overall it was a fascinating primer of not just the unification of scientific theories, but of the history of the scientific method in the western world.

best book on earth everything but awful

I loved it, it shared good theorys on the oragin of the eath I think anyone who likes reading about physics should read this

Stephen Hawking is my dawg

He breaks it down to where anyone can understand it. Different Michael Jackson though ;(

Everything you'd expect from Stephen Hawking

Its difficult to pick a favorite chapter, however I have gone back and reviewed chapter 8 quite a bit. Over all great book!

This book was awesome.

I love all Stephen Hawking's Books, He has never had a book i didn't like.

A good book, but the information is dated.

This book is a must read if you are interested in the cosmology and theoretical physics. The only issue I had with the book, and it is the same with any book that deals evolving knowledge, is that a knowledgeable reader can get frustrated by some of the information that is dated (published in 1988). Some theories in this book have been either proven or disproven for instance. It is amazing how quickly books of this genre get dated.

Excellent work, half hearted narration

Would you recommend this audiobook to a friend? If so, why?

I'd absolutely recommend this to anyone that wants a foundation of modern physics.

Did the narration match the pace of the story?

I actually really enjoyed the narration, however I felt it was rushed. You could hear papers rustling, and the narrator makes several mistakes throughout. Why they didn't just record additional takes where needed baffles me.

Did you have an extreme reaction to this book? Did it make you laugh or cry?

This book will make you wonder.

Any additional comments?

If you're interested in getting a broad understanding of what might possibly be going on in this universe, this is a great place to start!