[ramraj07]

There was never a time when a book gave the public an overview of the universe. ABHOT was so popular for being a book no one actually read, theres even an index named after Hawking due to it: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hawking_Index

Did _you_ read that book?

There however definitely was a piece of media that captured public minds and educated them about the cosmos. And that was the show Cosmos. The original of course. Not the NDT drivel.

[freehorse]

I am pretty certain this "hawking index" meme must be a new-ish thing. I read the book as teenager and know also others who did. It is a fairly easily readable book imo, so I don't think this characterisation is warranted by the qualities of the book itself.

I suspect that a popsci book becoming a bestseller creates a larger-than-the-usual-nerds audience, a big part of which lacks the motivation to actually finish it. I expect that in places like this you will find higher frequency of people who have actually read it.

Moreover, when i read the book i did not have easy access to pop-sci sources as a (practically pre-internet) teenager in a small town of a small country, like i would have had today. I got upon a booklet of a small publishing house with the titles of translated pop-sci books and would order them from a local bookstore. Maybe if I was already familiar enough with the topic through youtube videos etc I would not have finished either.

[NitpickLawyer]

> this "hawking index" meme must be a new-ish thing

TBF the methodology and hypotheses that it's based on aren't that bad. I'm sure Amazon has better data, but for a "publicly accessible" data (at that time) I can see it. The problem is that while lots of people might abandon the book, that doesn't mean that still loads of people don't read it fully. They are, after all, extremely popular books. Obviously some people will have received / impulse bought / FOMO / new year resolution / etc the books, but from the sales numbers that's still a lot of people that did enjoy them. Marketing aside, the book is pretty approachable, like were Sagan's books and so on.

[on_the_train]

Interesting. I've been gifted that book at just the right time in my life as a teenager. It captured me. I read it the to end many times. Not understanding everything or course. But it created a spark which laid the groundwork for my entire career.

I've never seen cosmos.

[hyperman1]

I did read the book, and know enough people who did. Now I may have weird interests, but that describes basically half the inhabitants of this site.

BTW, as non-USAian, I never saw Cosmos and never heard of NDT.

[ordu]

From that list I've read three books: "A Brief History of Time", "Thinking, Fast and Slow", and "Capital in XXI Century". First two I've read from start to end. The last I didn't read to the end, I think I've read ~50% of it. My numbers correlate with that list, the least "readable" book in the list is the book I didn't read through.

However I still doubt the methodology. It is not obvious for me that if a book was read in full, then highlights from it would be distributed uniformly all over the book.

[coliveira]

I did read it and I'm sure a whole generation of people also did, it is a very clear and readable book. Don't underestimate or minimize the impact of Hawking's book when it was released.

[hgoel]

As an early teen I begged my parents for both A Brief History of Time and The Grand Design. Read both several times. ~15 years later, my parents are still holding on to them and my Dad has read them a couple of times too. It was great reading and played a significant role in my choice of research as a career.

Never heard of the "people don't actually read it" meme.

[IncreasePosts]

I knew dozens of people in my high school who actually read it.

Maybe godel, escher, bach would be a better "book that people talked about but never read"

[pohl]

I was also tempted to offer GEB as a better example, although I’ve read it twice. Many bounce off of it.

[intrasight]

I read it in high school in 82. I still have the book.

Fun fact: The very first book ever sold on Amazon was "Fluid Concepts And Creative Analogies: Computer Models Of The Fundamental Mechanisms Of Thought" also by Douglas Hofstadter

[The_Blade]

i will never forget learning about Eratosthenes when i was very young and should have been playing Excitebike or something