Crichton departs from his usual routine with this true story of a game-changing robbery. “It is difficult,” Crichton says in his introduction, “to understand the extent to which the train robbery of 1855 shocked the sensibilities of Victorian England.” Crichton unpacks how the colorful cast of robbers very nearly pulled off the crime of the century and what it meant to 19th century London in this fast-paced account.

Crichton’s classic thriller about a deadly extraterrestrial microorganism has staying power. When the US government ignores a warning about insufficient decontamination procedures for returning space probes, the repercussions are deadly. A satellite falls and lands in a remote part of Arizona, subsequently killing everyone in a nearby town. And that’s only the beginning.

Will says: What a page-turner! This eco-thriller is one of the first books that I specifically remember the ending of. What a surprise to think, “whoa, that's more than I bargained for.” I think most people are familiar with the story and the way scientific hubris creates chaos (or maybe can’t overcome chaos) courtesy of the film franchise. But the book includes a small nugget (maybe an epilogue) that’s not included in the movie. While it doesn’t add much to the plot, I remember feeling like it cast a different feel over the whole book. I still gravitate towards books with these very science-y themes in science fiction, like Crichton’s books The Andromeda Strain and Westworld, and even non-fiction books, like The Demon in the Freezer by Richard Preston and Worm by Mark Bowden.