Rave
Kitty Ferguson,
The Washington Post
Brief Answers to the Big Questions came out seven months after [Hawking's] death and put to rest concerns that it would be just a mishmash of recycled material.
Positive
Marcelo Gleiser,
NPR
The book is quintessential Hawking.
Positive
The Independent
The newly-published book, Brief Answers to The Big Questions, finished by Hawking's family in the wake of his death earlier this year, includes insightful answers on topics like 'how did it all begin?' and 'will we survive on Earth?'.
Positive
John Horgan,
The Wall Street Journal
Hawking in this book is less brash than he once was.
Mixed
James McConnachie,
The Times
... resonant, wry, gently funny.
Positive
Tim Radford,
The Guardian
For those readers who invested in A Brief History and perhaps never quite finished it, there is good news: almost everything in Brief Answers is effortlessly instructive, absorbing, up to the minute and – where it matters – witty..
Mixed
Jonathan Butterworth,
The Guardian
I’m not sure who of those people [succeeded by Hawkins] had an overall view of the volume, but I do wish it had been more tightly edited. In a collection of essays or transcripts, some repetition is understandable, but I expected a coherent set of arguments. I stumbled, then, when the same explanations and even phrases reappeared without acknowledgment that the reader had seen them previously.
Positive
James Marshall Smith,
New York Journal of Books
Hawking’s writing is a welcome leap beyond those scientists who too often opine on popular topics in a scholarly but humdrum fashion.