Carroll's latest book "Quanta and Fields: The Biggest Ideas in the Universe" is about all this quantum field theory, and I think it perfectly covers the gap bet

Carroll's latest book "Quanta and Fields: The Biggest Ideas in the Universe" is about all this quantum field theory, and I think it perfectly covers the gap between pop-sci and academic material for people with some math exposure. While other authors just keep shy of equations and thus need to resort to simplified analogies, Carroll is not afraid of throwing a good share of math stuff and explaining the rationale from one equation to the other, while avoiding the really hard parts ("solving this equation tortures undergrad physics students for a year, but we won't be doing that")