NKS - A New Kind of Science, by Stephen Wolfram

A Caltech alum published a popular and very fat book in 2002 (wow, has it been that long?)

A New Kind of Science, by Stephen Wolfram

It was a big (controversial) deal.

Serious scientists said : this is rubbish (especially because the author doesn't seem humble enough about proclaiming the importance of his experiments) , while on the other hand, the book got more sales than almost anything serious scientists have written in decades. 

NKS is worth reading for how it gets you thinking in New directions about math, computation, and the natural world.  It has beautiful pictures too.  

Other reasons to get a copy - you can place it on a side-table at home, to make you seem intelligent :) 
If you just want to read/look, it's here --> the whole thing

This is only my SEPTEMBER 2011 post