By Stephen Hawking
224 pages
http://www.amazon.com/Brief-History-Time-Stephen-Hawking/dp/0553380168

I graduated from Texas Tech's College of Engineering, and after taking the same physics courses that any other engineer or physics major took ... I thought I had a pretty firm grasp on modern science.  The first chapter blew away that idea.  There is a quote that I love, which goes "If you can't explain something to a six-year-old, you really don't understand it yourself."  (This is often misattributed to Einstein).  Stephen Hawking fully embodies this idea with his uncanny ability to present several complex ideas in a clear, concise manner.  In fact there are many ideas in the book that are in direct opposition to the historical physics taught in classrooms or the "common sense" ideas we assumed were correct.  Hawking can skillfully explain why some of our basic assumptions about the universe and the world as we know it are no longer valid, and does so in a unhurried, step-by-step fashion so that by the time he draws the conclusion you are still right there with him and really understand ... instead of just taking his word for it.  In fact, there were a few places where he really shook up some fundamental ideas within a single paragraph.

This book is Hawking's attempt to give an overview of the scientific advances over the past few centuries, and catch people up to the present state of science.  He specifically covers relativity and quantum mechanics, as well as other related topics like black holes, wormholes, and string theory.  This may all sound very academic, but the fact is that many of these discoveries or theories could shape our future in drastic ways ... and some already are.  Here is a good quote from the book that seems to sum up the need for this "update" on modern science:

In Newton's time it was possible for an educated person to have a grasp on the whole of human knowledge, at least in outline.  But since then, the pace of the development of science has made this impossible.  Because theories are always being changed to account for new observations, they are never properly digested or simplified so that ordinary people can understand them.  You have to be a specialist, and even then you can only hope to have a proper grasp of a small proportion of the scientific theories.  Further, the rate of progress is so rapid that what one learns at school or university is always a bit out of date.  Only a few people can keep up with the rapidly advancing frontier of knowledge, and they have to devote their whole time to it and specialize in a small area.  The rest of the population has little idea of the advances that are being made or the excitement they are generating. (p185)

Hawking actually wrote that in one of the later chapters about the "Unification of Physics" through ideas like string theory, but the idea is valid regardless of the context.  Our civilization is progressing so rapidly that we can't expect to keep up with everything.  But this book sheds light on some very fundamental ideas that could radically change how you view the universe, or at least make you question some things you once thought of as facts written in stone.  Stephen's condition (Lou Gehrig's Disease) makes it difficult to write books, so you can bet that if he took the time to include a particular sentence or concept in the book ... he feels it is pretty important.  That is why this book is barely 200 pages.  I kind of consider it the cliff-note version of the last hundred year in physics.  But then again, don't expect to fly through this book when you read it ... he will definitely through you for a couple loops, some of which may take a while to digest.