Al-Khalili's book is one of three Ladybird Expert titles published so far this year. It joins Evolution, by geneticist Steve Jones, and Climate Change, by Prince Charles, Tony Juniper and Emily Shuckburgh, in the newest iteration of one of the most lucrative publishing wheezes of the decade - to recreate the children's books for adults.
One has only to look at the bestseller charts over the last 18 months to see why Penguin Random House, which owns the Ladybird brand, is doing this. Between October 2015 and December 2016, Ladybird published 20 books for adults, which were all spoofs jointly authored by TV comedy writers Jason Hazeley and Joel Morris. Between them, they took 11 of the top 100 places in the bestseller charts for 2016, and have to date sold more than four million copies, making nearly £30m. In the process they sparked a gold rush by other publishers, which have followed up with a bestselling series of Enid Blyton spoofs and an I-Spy series based on old Michelin game books designed to entertain families travelling with small children.
