So instead of leaving another long-winded review about this book, I'll instead link to a series of tweets I made about one of the most surprising (and good) things about it. 
 Book tweets book tweets, tweets about diversity 
 One thing I do want to point out, and really the only reason I gave it four stars instead of five, is that though this is a book for the layperson, there were some sections that I had to read three or four times to fully get the gist of, not because of the content, but because of the wording. Most of the time, Smolin's writing is accessible - and funny, and almost poetic in places. But sometimes that purple nature makes technical descriptions a little hard to swallow. 
 Otherwise, an all-in-all fantastic book, and a must read for anyone with an interest in string theory and the future of science on the whole.