It is surely a truism that if you wrote a book twice, you would not do it the same way the second time. In my case, Quarks, Leptons and the Big Bang was hauled round several publishers under the guise of a textbook for schools in England. All the time I knew that I really wanted it to be a popular exposition of particle physics and the big bang, but did not think that publishers would take a risk on such a book from an unknown author. Well, they were not too keen on taking a risk with a textbook either. In the end I decided to send it to IOPP as a last try. Fortunately Jim Revill contacted me to say that he liked the book, but thought it should be more of a popular exposition than a textbook. . .