I'd love any recommendations for a good non-fiction primer on science, particularly with a focus on natural history/biology.

It'll be a gift for my partner: They're far smarter than I am, but has some baffling gaps in their knowledge when it comes to science (two examples: they thought penguins were mammals, and that some islands float), and it's something we joke about a bunch.

I'd love to find an authoritative book that is pretty wide-ranging, and gives a solid grounding in a lot of areas, filling in gaps they might not realise they have in their knowledge. A lot of non-fiction science books are either more specialised, or, if broader, focused more at children. Instead, I'm thinking something more in the vein of The Penguin History of the World (strong recommend!) but for science.

They're a voracious reader (typically literary non-fiction and literary fiction), so it's not a problem if it's pretty chunky. Thank you!