This is an overview of science... all of it. What's great is that it's written by a non-fiction writer and total layman, he went out and found experts in all the fields and tried to get them to explain things to him. It's very well written, he illustrates the concepts in fun ways and also includes many stories about the quirky scientists making these discoveries throughout history.

I'm a bit ashamed to have read this, it's one step up from 'Religion for Dummies' but it was actually an interesting overview of all the major religions and the various sects, denominations, etc. It summarizes all the basic beliefs and history and seems much more unbiased than similar books I've paged through. This is also from a big series of books which covers diverse topics in a similar way.

Doesn't contain a huge amount of knowledge but it's HILARIOUS. The more you all ready know about Shakespeare, the funnier it gets and if you know nothing you'll learn a little and still have a great time.

This is actually a European museum guide but you could read it for art knowledge and learn lots about the great works and all the artistic periods. Pull up the works online as you read and it's almost like your there (not really, if you get the chance to go to Europe, do that instead). Incidentally if you do get to go to Europe I highly recommend any of the Rick Steve's guides.

Like the intellectual devotional but for American History. The seven weekly topic areas are politics & leadership, war & peace, rights & reform, business, building America, literature, and arts