Stephen Hawking [has] a brain of enviable vastness, seeing and understanding things that lie way beyond most of us... His modesty is engaging

Hawking writes movingly... we hear his voice radiating directly from the black hole of his motor neuron disease, without the amplification and elaboration supplied by the co-authors with whom he wrote his last few books

A concise, gleaming portrait

Powerful... [his] brevity makes for a bold picture

Read it for the personal nuggets... But above all, it's worth reading for its message of hope

Charmingly modest... it's appropriate that this most extraordinary of men should remain enigmatic

Stephen Hawking has had to overcome extraordinary obstacles in his life... Where he is most admirable is in his attitude to his disability - on which he is stoicism personified

His clarity, wit and determination are evident, his understatement and good humour moving... We will never really know Hawking. But what we do know - that he achieved extraordinary success against extraordinary adversity - is quite enough.

The book coherently appeals to readers who want a snapshot into Hawking's inner life and readers eager to trace the evolution of his thinking.

Most of us are terrified of death, but Sue Black shows us that death is in fact a wondrous process, intimately tied with life itself. Written with warmth and humanity, All That Remains reveals her life among the dead, who can surely count her as their best friend.

Many crime readers delight in the disgusting, the dark and the dangerous. Black’s reverence for human remains and her fearless intimacy with death in its many guises may well be a necessary antidote.

Sue Black has been intimately involved with the aftermath of death for her whole professional career and in her book she weaves in details of her amazing and active life with her analysis of death in a narrative that is personal, touching, occasionally tragic but also instilled with her wonderful sense of humour.

Dame Sue Black writes about life and death with great tenderness but no nonsense, with impeccable science lucidly explained, and with moral depths humanely navigated, so that we can all feel better about the path we must all inevitably follow. I am genuinely glad I read this book.

Compelling, brave and extremely accessible.. A must for anyone who thinks about the basics of living and dying. And there are jokes as well.

No scientist communicates better than Professor Sue Black. All That Remains is a unique blend of memoir and monograph that admits us into the remarkable world of forensic anthropology.

Where on earth would the world be without Sue Black?

Editor's Choice: An enthralling book about forensic science and the many faces of death.

Professor Black’s elegant exploration of death crafts a bridge that allows us, the living, to journey into her mesmerizing world. Her intimate examination of each layer and facet of death, is both intelligent and tender. Through her unflinching eye, we come to understand that life and death are indeed two parts of a continuous whole and that there is much insight to be gained if we approach each of these with curiosity rather than fear.

All That Remains provides a fascinating look at death - its causes, our attitudes toward it, the forensic scientist's way of analyzing it. A unique and thoroughly engaging book.

If you ever wondered about the life of a forensic anthropologist, Sue Black reveals the truth behind the TV screens.

A beautifully written memoir full of reflections on the deaths of strangers and family members.

She often finds herself dealing with the most macabre cases of murder. But the no-nonsense Scot is an upbeat character with a dry sense of humour, clearly identifiable in her memoir.

Ideal reading if you're a cheerful soul who likes to think about death. And think how it'll brighten your conversation on holiday.

Books of the Year

Best of the Year: Memoir
This book captures the profundity of human life while displaying a sense of humour, and peels back the skin to reveal a world few of us ever discover

Dame Sue Black, the woman who inspired the hit television show Silent Witness and has done for forensic science what Strictly has done for ballroom dancing, is an unlikely but deeply worthy national treasure.... Black's memoir, like her story, is curiously vibrant and life-affirming.

You can't help but warm to this retired professor of anatomy and forensic anthropology who chose "the many faces of death" as her medical speciality, yet is herself so vividly alive. Like [David] Nott, Black travelled the world at times, sifting maggots, bullets and human body parts in war zones. Despite it all, she remains convinced that our humanity transcends the very worst of which our species is capable.

As well as recounting a crime this text provokes its readers to think about human obsession and greed about the fate of avian species which, by an accident of plumage, have vanished from the earth. I warmly recommend this unusual, rich book.

A gripping natural-history detective story. Was Rist a cunning con-artist who more or less got away with the perfect, albeit clumsy crime? Or was he hopelessly addicted to feathers, to his hobby, and to his status as a young fly-tying protégé without the economic means to realise his dreams and potential?

This well written account of the known facts is well worth a read

It was hard to put the book down… Read it yourselves, enjoy it and learn from it!