How many of you have read both "A Brief History of Time" and "A Universe in a Nutshell." So, what do you think about these books?

I've read 'Brief History of Time', but found it rather heavy going. Not even heard of the other one till now.

I am one of the millions who got a little way into "Brief History of Time" and gave up. I am the type of person who can usually follow "normal" physics while it is being explained to me, even if it all starts to unravel soon after in my mind. This stuff, though, gets away from me rather quickly.

I have to disagree with you. I found it quite easy to understand.

A few years back, a new edition of "Brief History of Time" was released: "The Illustrated Brief History of Time." (There's also an "Illustrated Universe in a Nutshell.") There are enough clever pictures and visual aids that those who had to give up on the first edition might have better luck on a second try. In particular, I recall a very nice graphic involving playing cards that went a surprisingly long way toward explaining the concept of spin.

I'm not really an average reader in this case -- I am, after all, a physicist, so I have an unfair advantage. But I read the illustrated version pretty early in my physics education, and I found it very helpful for grasping a few conceptual details that had given me a lot of trouble till then.

I read "A Brief History of Time" a number of years ago and found it frustrating as it addresses the universe as matter. In the early 1960's when my science teacher was trying to explain E=MC2 for calculating energy in something I realized that what it really meant is that what we see as matter is energy.

I heard Lisa Randall on Charlie Rose the other nite and she is moving in the right direction. I expect to check out her book: "Warped Passages: Unraveling the Mysteries of The Universe's Hidden Dimensions"

Science is gradually beginning to realize that what we see as the universe is actually a small part of the real universe most of which we don't see or comprehend.

I'd recommend reading the Tao Te Ching, The Conference of the Birds and some of Krishnamurti's writings amongst the works of scientists as they are trying to explain the same thing and the metaphysicians do the job better than the physicists.

Have read them both, several years ago now, and thoroughly enjoyed them both, even recommended them to friends. However, for people who find 'science' books hard going, always tell them to read Bill Bryson's 'A Short History of Nearly Everything', a very good read, even for those people who would not touch a 'science' book with a barge pole.