Something like www.amazon.com/dp/0521835402/ would take me weeks to read properly, but most of the books on my list are popular science or introductory textbook

Something like www.amazon.com/dp/0521835402/ would take me weeks to read properly, but most of the books on my list are popular science or introductory textbooks. They just aren't that dense. I'm also reading just to get an overview at the moment. I'm not following up references or carefully criticizing experiments. I just want to get an idea of what the main areas of research are and what I might enjoy studying in depth.