The audio book is great in that each chapter starts out with Hawking's computerised voice and then fades into the narrators voice, so you felt that Stephen himself was talking to you and giving you his life story at a party or something.
His early life was very interesting and as I have not read a biography of someone as old as 70 before, he talks about the early/mid 1900's and gives good insight into how things were, especially in England. He gives exactly what the title describes, a brief history of his life, his family, the places he has been, all interspersed with a few funny tales of adventures. However there is a lot of physics that is described in the book. Whether this should be expected as he is a theoretical physicist, it can be quite difficult to understand and I could imagine 90% of people tuning out when the science is discussed. While I myself an not a physicist and only have a high school year 12 level of physics under my belt, I felt I could understand the concepts of what was being discussed but not the in depth information. I also found that I did tune out on one or two occasions.
Listening to this has only increased my fascination of such a brilliant man and I am amazed that there are people out there with such intellect. This biography could easily have been called "my extraordinary history", because that is what his life is, but I understand the publishers wanted to keep to the theme of his most widely known book. Also throughout this book you'll notice that Stephen has quite a healthy sense of humour, which is not what most people would assume for such a noted scientist.
A good book for those interested in a fascinating man, but perhaps not for those with no scientific background.
