Stephen Hawking & Leonard Mlodinow's "The Grand Design"

This book was a grand disappointment. I have enjoyed the previous Hawking books. I was delighted by earlier Mlodinow books. So I had high expectations. They weren't fulfilled. I guess if I knew no physics this book would have been a marvel. But if you've stayed up and read other authors on contemporary physics, this book has little to offer. Worse, it is a bit of hand-waving and generalizations that leave you unsatisfied.

This could have been an excellent book. They tackle topics that are worthy of their skills and insights. But they just don't deliver. Hawking has been somewhat guilty of this in the past, but this book is truly the worst offender of his books. It is too superficial. That's truly astounding because this book is tackling very deep concepts: what is reality, how do you understand reality, is there any 'god' behind reality. Their bit about models is potentially great but they just don't develop it enough to carry the weight of their argument in the final chapter: M-theory is the only complete theory of the universe. I'm open to the idea, but they just didn't deliver the convincing argument I needed. I'm willing to admit I don't have the "smarts" they have, but they needed to do more hand-holding to convince me. The fact that they deliver the conclusion with a flourish like a magician showing the egg has become a pigeon doesn't convince me. It makes me feel cheated. They didn't explain it well enough for me to be carried right up to the end.

The attempted humour in the book, Mlodinow's contribution, isn't worthy of him. Mlodinow has the literary skills to make an exciting book with good humour, but here the attempts are like watching a comedian with his arms & legs tied and a sock stuffed in his mouth. You can tell he is trying to deliver his lines but the muffled quivering delivery falls far short of a good joke.

I wouldn't say "don't read this book". But I would say "don't get your hopes too high". This is a great "gee whiz" book for a neophyte. But if you are a general reader with a popular science background in this area, this book isn't going to wow you.