Customer Reviews

Music to Move the Stars : A Life with Stephen Hawking (Updated Edition)

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This is an interesting book on a multitude of levels. It is not just your regular celebrity expose. It is also a look into the life of an academic family, the family of a severely handicapped person, and a look into British life.

Jane Hawking married Stephen Hawking, believing that his life would be a short one. They hoped to jam as much love and fulfillment into what they thought would be short years together. They married fairly young, had children right away and set to keeping house. (Boy, wasn't everyone surprised at his staying power!)

Jane (May I call her Jane?) describes the domestic details of a young family as well as the intrigues of her tweedy academic society at the University. Its a delightful look into how academes live, describing the politics, the society and the passion for learning. At various points, they travel to the States and other places in Europe and she enlightens us on the life of the learned in those places, as well. If you contemplate a career in academia, this book can be enlightening.

She, for many years, was an astounding caregiver, dealing with Stephen's (May I call him Stephen?) progressive physical decline and heavier demands. She managed to run the household, raise the kids, and literally haul him around for years before a serious respiratory incident forced her to bring professional nurses in full-time. She recounts battles with the British health care system, battles for access with the University, and the domestic friction that one would expect when one member of the family is so handicapped.

Jane got a PhD in her own right (you GO, girl!) in Spanish poetry and here is where the book loses a star. The book's a bit more wordy than it needs to be, on a number of fronts. My PhD buddies tend to write non-thesis material like that. I recognize the style. A bit of editing may have been nice.

Still, a worthy read for moms, academes, caregivers, stargazers, Spanish poets, Baroque musicians...

Jane Hawking tells life as she lived it with her husband of 25 years Stephen Hawking. This is a story of families - those that Stephen and Jane came from and the one they built.

The interplay of love given and received from unexpected sources is a major theme of this book. Kind words from colleagues were remembered as she struggled to bring up 3 children and help make a sick husband strong.

Insights on living with the disabled from a family perspective abound. The energy needed to run concerts, dinner parties, childrens' parties, trips and more comes through in the book, as well as profound emotions.

This book inspires one to make the most out of life. Stephen's pioneering research is clearly explained in simple terms for those who do not have a PhD in the mathematical physics of black holes. If a little lengthy, it reveals vignettes of an academic life that roams from Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge across the Atlantic to dreary Seattle and sunny Pasadena.

With candid insights into her private spiritual experiences the author draws her own conclusions regarding the role of God in the universe.

Jane Hawking tells life as she lived it with her husband of 25 years Stephen Hawking. This is a story of families - those that Stephen and Jane came from and the one they built. The interplay of love given and received from unexpected sources is a major theme of this book.

Kind words from colleagues were remembered as she struggled to bring up 3 children and help make a sick husband strong.
The energy needed to run concerts, dinner parties, childrens' parties, trips and more comes through in the book, as well as profound emotions. Insights on living with the disabled from a family perspective abound.

This book inspires one to make the most out of life. Stephen's pioneering research is clearly explained in simple terms for those who do not have a PhD in the mathematical physics of black holes. If a little lengthy, it reveals vignettes of an academic life that roams from Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge across the Atlantic to dreary Seattle and sunny Pasadena.

With candid insights into her private spiritual experiences the author draws her own conclusions regarding the role of God in the universe.

I first was drawn to this book after reading an article that mentioned it in the London Daily Mail online. Professor Hawking is an intriguing figure, I think many would agree.

When I learned that his first wife had written "her side" of the story, I was curious and only was able to find this title through amazon.com. My overall impression: This book will certainly 'fill in' the Hawking family story but, at over 500 pages, might purport to tell you more than you really want to know.

Jane Hawking [not sure of her present married name...Jones?] seems a very literate, sensitive, and honest writer; to her credit, she does not present a one-sided version of her 25-year odyssey with Stephen Hawking. She shares the beginning of their relationship as two somewhat shy and intellectually gifted students who meet and fall in love, marry, and begin a family. She married Prof. Hawking after he had first learned of his motor neurone disease diagnosis. The narrative is quite comprehensive, covering the intervening years up to and including Stephen's exit from their marriage and three children, the presence of musician Jonathan [who she married in 1997, I believe]in the family to assist in the physical care of Prof. Hawking and provide the emotional support that sustained Mrs. Hawking. What to make of this development, as well as the entree of a married,personal nurse into the Hawking family--who became Stephen's paramour, second wife and, subsequently, second ex-wife, is for the reader to decide.

Perhaps it is because I am an American reader, but I did find parts of this carefully crafted narrative so painstakingly thorough that I skimmed through some of the middle chapters. When I had finished reading it, I was left with a sense of second-hand exhaustion for all this brave and steadfast woman endured and tried to accomplish, including rearing three children and earning her own PhD--as well as feeling some admiration for her perseverance.

The portrait of Prof. Hawking, whom she knew as no one else does, lends support to the notion that geniuses tend to lack the balance and sense of others required for healthy relationships.

Several pages of family photos, including important events such as receiving honors at Buckingham Palace, an audience with Pope John Paul II, etc., and images of the children growing up, make for a nice addition to the story.

Apparently the first edition of this book provoked some controversy [no surprise there], and Mrs. Hawking (Jane) has provided an update in this volume in which she explains and clarifies some of her earlier statements.

Overall, a book such as this can't help but have an "agenda" and hers has been to tell her story definitively and, presumably, stave off any third-person accounts.

All this being said, I can recommend this book as a thorough and literate account of a unique family story, with the caveat that shortening it by a couple of hundred pages would have been advisable.