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For the absolute beginner there are two well regarded and obvious choices: Susskind and Penrose. Stenger's Comprehensible Cosmos is unusual in that it covers all the essentials and has the basic math. For example, he presents the gauge fields of the standard model in their covariant derivative setting. Tong's Lectures are a good next step for classical mechanics through QFT.  Then Zee and Ryder.  QFT Demystified is helpful for self study.  Griffiths for E&M and QM. And Schwartz Principles of Electrodynamics. Dirac's General Relativity is a good outline. There are a lot of great GR textbooks. I like D' Invernio and Schutz. Then Wald.

Consider reviewing collisions and scattering in classical mechanics and QM. Griffiths reviews classical scattering in his Intro to QM. He covers scattering in Particle Physics in his Particle Physics book. Supplement QFT with Griffith's Particle Physics book.  The best place to start is David Tong's lectures, lecture notes and problem sets. These include many helpful warnings. http://www.damtp.cam.ac.uk/user/tong/qft.html Then Ryder, supplemented by Zee, to transition to the path integral approach. There is also a book titled "QFT for the Gifted Amatuer" that moves through the same material very slowly with a lot of calculations. It's almost too much because you can lose sight of the big picture. So keep Tong's concise notes nearby. And this begins with a relatively straightforward introduction to Path Integrals. It also has a nice bibliography. http://www.damtp.cam.ac.uk/user/ho/AQFTNotes.pdf