Wow. As part of one of my new year's resolutions to kick my irrational fear of physics (even though I study maths and computing...?), I picked up this book, and I am very glad I did, because it revealed the true beauty of Physics that I've been trying to ignore for the past few years. Smolin wrote in a way that made me feel that I understand what was going on (even though I probably didn't) and the nice interludes about the philosophy of science were very up my street. I will continue to pursue more physics, and my one hope is that all the books I read on this topic are like this!