BBC Radio 4 organizes the "Reith Lectures" every year, inviting a scientist to speak about their scientific field and research. The lectures are recorded in front of an audience, which includes leading scientists from the Royal Institution of London. Radio 4 listeners submit numerous questions to the station regarding the lecture topic, and at the end of the lecture, a selection of these questions is asked "live" by the respective listeners and answered by the speaker. In this year's (2016) Reith Lectures, the invited speaker was Stephen Hawking, a famous cosmologist and professor at the University of Cambridge. In his two fifteen-minute lectures, Professor Hawking: —summarizes the discoveries of modern physics regarding black holes, the exotic celestial objects whose existence challenges the very nature of space and time, —reviews his own research, a painstaking and passionate work of a lifetime, and —informs us about the latest developments in the field, encouraging for the understanding of the laws governing our Universe, in which he continues to actively participate. Hawking examines the astrophysics community's concerns about black holes and the challenges posed by the idea that all matter and information are permanently destroyed inside them. He explains his hypothesis that black holes may emit a type of radiation, known as Hawking radiation. He discusses research on mini black holes, which might be observed in the Large Hadron Collider at CERN. Finally, he proposes the theory that information may remain stored on the event horizon of the black hole in an encoded form. For those who are curious but bewildered, who are fascinated by ideas but feel intimidated by scientific topics, reading this book provides a good stimulus for reflection and information. What they said about the book • "With clarity and subtle humor, Hawking explains the complex issues of cosmology to the general public. [...] This is truly a brain of great power." ―Observer • "A thrilling experience to watch such a great scientist tackle such big issues." ―Sunday Times • "A great master of physics, one of the few theorists who might be close to reading the mind of God." ―Los Angeles Times • "Since Einstein, there has been no physicist who has made the ideas of the Big Bang and the origins of the Universe so coherent and understandable to the human mind." ―Newsday