Many wonderful books (Score 1)

Feynman's QED, Dawkins' The Selfish Gene, Gamow's Gravity and 30 Years That Shook Physics (if only he were better at titles), Weinman's The First Three Minutes, The Faber Book of Science, Galileo's Daughter and Longitude by Dava Sobel, oh, and a wonderful read: Arthur Koestler's The Watershed (a book about Newton which only mentions him on the last page). A Brief History of Time is not a good beginner's text. Gamow is much more approachable.