I love the idea of looking for overlooked gems. Here are a few of mine:<p>Infinite in All Directions, Freeman Dyson : just a book of his thoughts, but I really appreciated his perspective on respect between religion/spirituality and science.<p>Ignition! An informal history of liquid rocket propellants, J.D. Clark : I picked up a copy of this in a roadside bookstore on a lark. Entertaining tales of people blowing themselves up in the name of science.<p>Apollo 11 Press kit : My grandmother was a journalist for Florida Today during the space race, and she gave me her copy. It is amazing to see how much detail was provided. I don't know if our modern press ever gets press kits like these, but it was not dumbed-down much at all, which was very nice to see.<p>The Adventures of Samurai Cat, Mark Rogers : Silly fun.
Kind of like if Bored of the Rings had been written by Jerry Bruckheimer and Spider Jerusalem.<p>Into the cool, Sagan and Schnieder : about complexity and thermodynamics. Written for a layperson, I still learned a lot from it.<p>Order out of Chaos, Prigogine and Stengers : More thermo, also written for lay audience, also learned a lot from it.<p>Controlled Thermonuclear Reactions, L. Artsimovich : Of all the plasma physics books I have read (many) this is the one I remember most. Rather out-of-date now, it contains loads of information about the early Soviet fusion program, with pictures and discussion of now-forgotten experiments.