A third book in a similar vein is Lab Girl by Hope Jahren. It's a bit of her own story mixed in with useful info, but you can feel the love she has for the subject.

During the past six months I have been challenged intellectually and aesthetically by these works:

Paideia: The Ideals of Greek Culture, vol 1-3, by Werner Jaeger

Diary by Witold Gombrowicz

Computer Science: An Interdisciplinary Approach by Sedgewick

2666 by Roberto Bolaño

The Linux Programming Interface by Michael Kerrisk

Tomie: No Use Escaping by Junji Ito

L’homme aux cercles by Fred Vargas

Cryptonomicon by Neal Stephenson

Lab Girl by Hope Jahren

Operating Systems: Three Easy Pieces by Arpaci-Dusseau

I Contain Multitudes by Ed Yong.

The Weird by Ann and Jeff VanderMeer

The Federalist Papers, ed. by Kesler

The Anti-Federalist Papers, ed. by Ketcham

Doctor Faustus by Thomas Mann, new translation by John Woods

Searching for Stars on an Island in Maine by Alan Lightman

Loren Eiseley in the Library of America Edition

Tu rostro mañana by Javier Marías

The Complete Essays by Michel De Montaigne, translation by Screech

Earning The Rockies by Kaplan

Desperate Remedies by Thomas Hardy

The Notebooks of Joseph Joubert

Nature Stories by Jules Renard

Mac y su contratiempo by Enrique Vila-Matas

Olinger Stories by John Updike

Greek Science in Antiquity by Marshall Clagett

At The Existentialist Cafe by Sarah Bakewell

100 Diagrams That Changed The World by Scott Christianson

Heart of Europe: A History of the Holy Roman Empire by Peter Wilson

Alec "The Years Have Pants" by Eddie Campbell

Landmarks by Robert Macfarlane