It is difficult to summarise the breadth of reviewers' responses to Big Bang. Descriptions ranged from 'epic' and 'wonderful' to 'beautiful' and 'entertaining'. Many reviews emphasised the lucidity of Singh's writing: Nature said that 'this very well-written book conveys the ideas underpinning cosmological theory with great clarity' and The Economist called it 'a model of clarity'.

Singh's ability to tell a complex story engagingly was also widely praised: 'Singh is a very gifted storyteller who never misses the chance to make his subject clearer or more entertaining' wrote Scarlett Thomas in the Independent on Sunday; the Guardian commented that 'Singh tells his tale well, with chatty anecdotes leavening the astrophysics' and the Daily Telegraph described the book as 'an epic tale brilliantly told, packed with courage and tragedy, heroes and martyrs'.

But, most of all, the book won plaudits for its tackling of a subject that still strikes fear into many, otherwise very intelligent, adults: mathematics. 'Even the most mathematically hobbled of us', said the Sunday Telegraph, could be enabled to understand 'the history of man's intellectual engagement with the dark spaces around him' by reading Big Bang. And, in the Daily Mail, the maths-phobic were entreated not to worry since 'Simon Singh spares us most of the maths, and he juggles big ideas with tact and care'.

For anyone who struggles to understand science, suggested the Mail on Sunday, Big Bang was a good place to begin: 'Even if the cosmologists don't know where the universe is going, at least they have found out where it has come from. Anybody who wants to understand this wonderful achievement will not do better than to start with Singh's book'.