QED: The Strange Theory of Light and Matter, by Richard Feynman - for someone who never got science, this book was a beautiful revelation of just how extra-ordinary our natural world is.
A Distant Mirror: The Calamitous 14th Century, by Barbara Tuchman. Probably the best history book I've ever read. There's a reason the woman won two Pulitzer's - such a fantastic writer.
The books, if red in that order, provide a total picture of evolution in our society and the driving forces.