Born to Run by Christopher McDougall is really great. Everyone I know who reads it, non-runners included, enjoys it immensely. This is the kind of book that gets people started. You can't read it and not want to run.

Once a Runner by John L. Parker, is a novel, and he writes running the way men write war. I highly recommend this one (the sequel, Again to Carthage, not so much).

Dean Karnazes's Ultramarathon Man is okay, the poor storytelling is compensated for by his crazy stories. He's got at least two other books, and in the same line of ultras, I've heard good things about Marshall Ulrich's Running on Empty, so that's still on my list.

Haruki Murakami's What I Talk About When I Talk About Running is really good, but I really like his other work, and not everyone does.

If you've got a Kindle, I recommend you pick up Hal Higdon's The Duel, I don't know if you can get it in hard copy anywhere.

I'm almost done with Running with the Buffaloes right now, which is interesting from a "lots of details of training methods and race times" perspective, but loses me as a recreational runner who never raced in college.

There have been a few threads in this sub about running books, and I got most of my recommendations from combing through them.

edit: clarity.