Stephen Hawking

Hawking selected Middlemarch as his book choice on the BBC Radio 4 Desert Island Discs episode.

The quote is taken word for word from the source.

BBC Radio 4 · 1992-12-25 · accessed 2026-06-22

Interview · Desert Island Discs book choice

The BBC episode page for Stephen Hawking's Desert Island Discs lists the book choice as Middlemarch by George Eliot; the page schema gives the 1992-12-25 date.

Hawking singled out Weinberg's cosmology book as a very good existing book about the early universe in the acknowledgments to A Brief History of Time.

This text documents what the source says, but it is not verified as a word-for-word quote.

Wikipedia · 1988 · accessed 2026-06-20

Article · Secondary book citation

The reception section quotes Hawking's acknowledgments to A Brief History of Time, where he describes The First Three Minutes as one of the very good books about the early universe.