Reddit mentions of Six Easy Pieces: The Fundamentals of Physics Explained (Penguin Press Science)

(Former) theoretical physicist here, with a few years of college teaching experience.

A lot of the recommendations provided so far by other people here emphasise a mathematical background, which is definitely important and necessary if you're going to pursue physics in the long term. However, when starting, it's easy to get sidetracked by the math and lose sight of your stated goal, thereby getting discouraged.

Therefore, my best advice is to start with a solid conceptual book and build up from there, depending on your interests and knowledge. As for the math, learn as you go until you feel that you want to dive deep into a particular subject in physics, at which point you'll know what math you'll need to learn in depth.

An excellent conceptual start is Hewitt's Conceptual Physics.

Other good starting point books are Feynman's Six Easy Pieces and Six Not-So-Easy Pieces.

Hewitt's book is a more traditional textbook-style text while Feynman's books are more free-style.

From there, the Feynman Lectures in Physics are challenging but extremely rewarding reading.

Once you've gone through those, you'll be in great shape to decide on your own what you want to read/learn next.

Also, as already suggested, online resources such as MIT's Open Course are highly recommended.

Best of luck!

So do something about it! Start reading books like Six Easy Pieces: Fundamentals of Physics Explained by Richard Feynman, and go from there. There has never been more access to knowledge. Entire MIT, Cornell and Open University courses are online for free, there is the Khan Academy, and so on and so on. If you don't want to be depressed about not understanding particle physics then earn your time playing Skyrim by trying to learn about it!

I found Feynman's books easy to read and he has a knack of explaining complex ideas in a reasonably simple way - I'd start with Six Easy Pieces and then move on to some of his others depending on your field of interest.

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Six-Easy-Pieces-Fundamentals-Explained/dp/0140276661

It collapses the wave function, not the wave itself. The wave function can be seen as a set of positions and probabilities of being at those positions, observing forces many of these positions to dissappear. The more precisely you measure the fewer positions remain possible.

One of the pieces in Six easy pieces by Richard Feynman covers this very well.
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Six-Easy-Pieces-Fundamentals-Explained/dp/0140276661/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1398412419&sr=1-1&keywords=6+easy+pieces