The History of the Universe, in Under 200 Pages

For years I have been hearing about a book entitled A Brief History of Time: From the Big Bang to Black Holes, by Stephen Hawking. I had thought of reading it, but was put off by the subject matter, physics (I flunked physics in high school), and the length of the book (under 200 pages). I mean how could anyone write anything meaningful about the history of the universe and time in such a short book? I figured there would be a lot of equations and big scientific words that would just make my eyes glaze over. A couple of months ago, a friend of mine, an engineer and one of the smartest people I've ever known, mentioned that he just read the book and it was the best book he had ever read. So I decided to read it. I checked out a copy from my local library. It didn't take long to realize that Stephen Hawking is an excellent writer, one of those gifted authors who can take complicated concepts and make them understandable using simple language and everyday analogies that even I can understand. He even uses humor, almost on every page. He pokes fun at himself, and the limitations of scientific inquiry. He leaves the door open to the existence of God. There was only one equation in the book, Einstein's famous E = mc2. I can't say I understand the equation, but at least it looks pretty simple. I came away from Hawking's book with a better understanding of the universe, space, and time, and the significant progress that brilliant scientists like Hawking have made towards a Unified Theory of Everything. I was talking about the book with one of my Spanish students, who showed me another book by Hawking, The Universe in a Nutshell, which covers the same material, but in greater depth and with beautiful color illustrations. It's on my list of books to read.