Popular books on thermodynamics

I have been recently asked (twice actually) what are good popular science books on thermodynamics, entropy, second law etc. Since I learned all that stuff from textbooks, I have no good answer. Any suggestions?

I know about Peter W. Atkins books (comments, opinions?) and Hans-Christian von Baeyer's books (comment, opinions?), but I have not read either of them.

How about Physics and Chance? Perhaps a bit too high level. Never read it myself, but have heard good reviews.

Sklar is a great writer (I read his Philosophy of Physics), but you need to be at least a senior in physics to be able to follow his quite serious discussions. I was looking for something that you could give to somebody with, say, high school physics level (or less), and there doesn't seem to be too much...

This is not an expository text about thermodynamics (it assumes some knowledge of it, although it leaves out almost all the math), rather a discussion of thermodynamic principles as applied to living organisms: Into the cool. If that slant doesn't interfere with your purpose (although I'm not sure it covers everything you're looking for), I recommend it.

I hated Atkins. He has a very very confusing style. AT least when I was at Uni. Maybe later editions have been tempered a bit, but I didn't find any explanations of why things were, mearly lots of unexplained maths.

#4 Thanks for that great suggestion! I will check that out.

#5 Atkins also wrote some popular books on thermodynamics, but I don't know how good they are. High rating on LT, though.

Out of Gas has a couple of chapters on thermodynamics. They're more specific than general. For example, Heat Engines and Entropy. But it is a good popular explanation on why there's probably not going to be any breakthroughs on 100 MPG gasoline powered Hummers anytime soon.

Thanks for the suggestion!