Not surprisingly, therefore, the scientist's new memoir gives a nod to his unlikely bestseller in its title.
It certainly lives up to the ''brief'' part. Deduct the photos and you are left with fewer than 100 pages of double-spaced text on A5 stock. Given the difficulty he has writing these days - one or two words a minute - brevity was probably a necessity.
There are some good lines: ''I was born on January 8, 1942, exactly three hundred years after the death of Gallileo'', he says.
''I estimate, however, that about two hundred thousand other babies were also born that day. I don't know whether any of them was later interested in astronomy.''
Even if string theory, wormholes, black holes and time travel mean nothing to you, you will know something about Stephen Hawking: diagnosed young as likely to die of motor neuron disease, wheelchair-bound, talks through a synthesiser, Lucasian Professor of Mathematics at Cambridge and the most eminent scientist since Einstein.
Like Einstein, Hawking has been picked up by popular culture, guesting on The Simpsons and Star Trek (shows he likes).
So what will the average reader get from this book that Google cannot serve up? Not much.
There are a few good anecdotes about childhood, including a stint in India: ''My father refused to eat Indian food during his time there, so he hired an ex-British Indian cook and bearer to prepare and serve English food.''
He also discusses the need to popularise his bestseller and the fact most people know him for his public persona rather than his scientific achievements.
But Hawking brushes over two broken marriages in a few paragraphs. My Brief History keeps us at bay. We'll have to wait for another hand to tap out something more satisfying.
- Gavin McLean is a Wellington historian.
