For me, this was like two books in one.  Let me explain:<br><br>The first third of the book is truly amazing. This 'book within a book' explains in layman's terms the physics of the universe which is already accepted as 'truth'.  These concepts are ordinarily difficult for the non-physicist, non-mathematician to grasp.  With beautiful clarity and eloquence, the author is able, using understandable examples, to explain concepts such as time moving more slowly and physical dimensions changing as the speed of light is approached.  The probability concepts of quantum mechanics and the problem of reconciling quantum mechanics with the physics of large fast moving objects are discussed in a very understandable way.  This part of the book gets a strong 5 star rating for sure.<br><br>But the last 2/3 of the book was, to me, less impressive.  This is the portion that explains string theory and how it integrates with classic physics.  The discussion goes through a history of the development of string theory.  Perhaps, given the relative 'newness of the theory, there may not be any other way to go about the discussion.  But I found it somewhat tedious, difficult and certainly less exciting to go through the theory's evolution than trying to understand where it stands today.<br><br>Additionally, in my opinion, the explanations involving string theory discussion did not have the same clarity as the first part of the book and I don't believe that it is simply because the theory is 'harder' to understand.  It seemed like it was written in a totally different style, and if you told me that there were separate authors for the 'classic physics' portion of the book and the string theory portion of the book I would have no trouble believing it.<br><br>So, all in all, a strong 5 stars for the first third of the book and 3 stars for the last 2/3...and an overall 4 stars.  I should note that I did glean a great deal from the last 2/3, but I just wish it were written 'by the same person' that wrote the first part.  Still...I think there is so much information here that the book is one that should be read by anyone who wants to try to understand our universe more deeply.  Just remember that string theory is just that...a theory, albeit a seemingly strong and elegant one.<br><br>As an aside, I have a Kindle DX and when I downloaded the book all the diagrams and figure were there.  So, while I am sure it was true that at one point the figures were missing, as noted by many prior reviewers, the figures are now in the Kindle download and display beautifully on the DX. I don't have a K2 so I can't say anything about how they display on that.