I finally finished Brian Greene's Fabric of the Cosmos and I am more confused than ever about string theory, M-theory and the nature of spacetime.
I feel as though I should read the book again. I guess at least now I am familiar enough with the concepts which confuse me to be able to sound like I know something about general relativity, quantum mechanics and string theory over beers with friends, and that's the important thing, right?
Greene uses lots of pop cultural referenced examples to illustrate difficult mathematic/theoretical constructs, so familiarity with the Simpsons, X-Files, Star Trek and Star Wars may sometimes have you thinking "hey, I know what he's talking about" even when you have no clue. I think some of it actually did sink in, so I'm going to recommend this to anyone who desires a primer on the advances in physics & cosmology since e=mc2 but doesn't want to read a bunch of equations.