And speaking of innovative thinkers....

I never got around to posting about a short, but poignant book about Richard Feynman called Feynman's Rainbow by Leonard Mlodinow.
Great book about a fascinating figure in his last years. It also chronicles Mlodinow's struggle to find his place at Cal Tech amongst some of the greatest physicists of our time.
This is an accessible book that doesn't even require an interest in, much less an aptitude for, physics to be enjoyed.