Reddit mentions of Einstein for Beginners

there is a good quote in this book: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0375714596/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_search_asin_title?ie=UTF8&psc=1

something like: "He was born into a world not of his making, just like everybody else"

If you care about these things, there is an excellent book called "Einstein for beginners" which talks a lot about him, Relativity and all those thought experiments.
http://www.amazon.com/Einstein-Beginners-Joseph-Schwartz/dp/0375714596

Personally, I think you would get great suggestions on /r/physics. But since you're here...

Since you seem like you're just dipping your toes in the water, you might want to start off with something basic like Hawking (A Brief History of Time, The Universe in a Nutshell).

I highly recommend Feynman's QED, it's short but there's really no other book like it. Anything else by Feynman is great too. I found this on Amazon and though I haven't read it, I can tell you that he was the greatest at explaining complex topics to a mass audience.

You'll probably want to read about relativity too, although my knowledge of books here is limited. Someone else can chime in, maybe. When I was a kid I read Einstein for Beginners and loved it, but that's a comic book so it might not be everyone's cup of tea.

If you really want to understand quantum mechanics and don't mind a little calculus (OK, a lot), try the textbook Introduction to Quantum Mechanics by Griffiths. Don't settle for hokey popular misconceptions of how QM works, this is the real thing and it will blow your mind.

Finally, the most recent popular physics book I read and really enjoyed was The Trouble with Physics by Smolin. It's ostensibly a book about how string theory is likely incorrect, but it also contains really great segments about the current state of particle physics and the standard model.