Book Review: Stephen Hawking: A Memoir of Friendship and Physics by Leonard Mlodinow

This review was first published by Booklist on May 1, 2020.

In his latest, Mlodinow (Elastic, 2018) offers a heartfelt account of his friendship with theoretical astrophysicist Stephen Hawking. They met in 2003 and collaborated on two books before Hawking’s death in 2018, A Briefer History of Time (2005) and The Grand Design (2010). The narrative anchor of this memoir is an account of their collaborative process of writing the latter interwoven with details about Hawking’s life, how he learned to live with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, and his ground-breaking work in cosmology. Fellow physicist Mlodinow has a scientist’s perspective on Hawking, eschewing often hyperbolic media accounts. He does an admirable job of explaining the cosmological concepts without overwhelming casual readers. Their working relationship quickly turned into friendship, and Mlodinow gleans many insights into the kind of man Hawking was—passionate, rebellious, funny, warm, unconventional, stubborn, sometimes peevish, often controversial, and unafraid. He was a complex person driven by a passion to understand, overcome the limitations of his disability, and make human connections. Mlodinow renders a satisfying and humane portrait.