From my experience, it's not enough to just pick out some books you need to work through the exercises to actually understand anything so whatever you grab to learn physics be it a book, ppt slides from a class or video lectures whatever, you need to work through the stuff. It requires a lot of time. This of course assumes you're actually interested in learning physics.
I got my undergraduate degree in physics so I've read or skimmed many books and from my experiences some good ones to check out would be:
Introductory:
Serway and Jewett it's your standard calc-based physics book covering pretty much everything from intro mechanics, to e&m, thermo, optics, waves and modern physics. Basically what you'd need for the first 3-4 semesters of physics. You could really get any of a number of books, they've tons of different kinds. Edition doesn't matter either, the intro physics hasn't changed in a long time.
Modern Physics:
Thornton and rex very good intro to modern physics, pretty much the standard for courses of it's kind. This is generally used for 4th semester physics at many colleges, not an easy in you'll want to be solid and the earlier intro physics and calculus before moving into this.
Electromagnetism:
Purcell is a very good book for learning the math and concepts it's geared towards the introductory e&m course (semester 2 at most colleges) but for places like MIT or Berkeley (in fact it's the Berkley physics course iirc it was created alongside several other volumes for their physics courses).
You'll also want to read
Griffiths it's basically the defacto standard textbook for upper level EM courses, I imagine you'd be hard pressed to find many colleges that don't require or at least reference this book in their course syllabus. You'll want a solid background in math and physics before this. And not just calculus but differential equations, and basically most of what gets covered in a standard Mathematical Physics course. It starts out with an Math intro chapter to help you get up to speed on what you should know.
Mathematical Physics:
Boas is what I'd recommend, it's another widely cited book I used it myself for my coursework and it's very good. Though be careful where you buy it from, I ended up with a weird bootleg copy that just screams copyright infringement and 3rd world county.
Quantum Physics: I'm a big fan of
Shankar's book really good, really well explained treatment on the subject it's what was used in my own course and really worth the time going through thoroughly. Covers way more than the 1 semester upper level QM course but if you get through this you'll definitely be well versed in physics.
That would be enough to keep anyone busy at least a few months to years, some parting remarks. I haven't gone through all the previous posts but if no one has mentioned the
Feynman Lectures on Physics they're definitely worth a read, very thorough treatment of the concepts covered in the intro courses. The audio from his lectures are also out there if you feel like hunting them down.
Also all the books I've mentioned so far are out on the internet somewhere for download, so you don't have to buy anything and I really wouldn't recommend buying unless you know you're going to go through with learning physics and you want to have a copy. Also libraries are a great resource especially if you're already in college as I imagine it's difficult getting textbooks from a local library (obviously depending on where you live).
There are also plenty of pop science physics books out there, which are always a mixed bag in my opinion, they're enjoyable enough to read but at the end of them you really won't have a solid grasp of any physics. However I will recommend checking out
A Short History of Nearly Everything, by Bill Byrson really nice book covers a wide range of topics from physics to chemistry, to astronomy and just all kinds of stuff not just the science but the people behind it who sometimes lived really interesting lives. Just an enjoyable read.
And to reiterate, not just to the OP (who may have long since moved on from here) but anyone else that finds this and actually reads all that crap I wrote. The main way to learn physics (really anything) is to do it, just reading isn't enough to fully understand the math, the equations the concepts you have to delve deep into it and not by finding other peoples solutions and following along or trying it out after looking at what others do, it's the process of not really knowing what you're doing to figuring it out that really makes it stick. Though that's just my opinion, do as you like.
