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The Orchid Thief is a 1998 narrative nonfiction book by American journalist Susan Orlean. From Wikipedia: “The Orchid Thief is based on Orlean’s investigation of the 1994 arrest of horticulturist John Laroche and a group of Seminoles in South Florida for poaching rare orchids in the Fakahatchee Strand State Preserve.

Positive reviews included that of Michael Pearson at the Atlanta Journal-Constitution who called it "a rare and exotic tale that shows a journalist's gifts in full bloom." New York Magazine noted the "hilariously reported, discursive narrative wanders in many directions," but saw that as a core strength of the work.

Jurassic Park is a 1990 science fiction novel written by Michael Crichton. From Wikipedia: "A cautionary tale about genetic engineering, it presents the collapse of a zoological park showcasing genetically recreated dinosaurs to illustrate the mathematical concept of chaos theory and its real-world implications.

Jurassic Park critiques the dystopian potentialities of modern science. Similar to how his other novels represent science and technology as both hazardous and life-changing, Michael Crichton's novel highlights the hypocrisy and superiority complex of the scientific community that inspired John Hammond to re-create dinosaurs and treat them as commodities, which only lead to eventual catastrophe. Jurassic Park is another version of Mary Shelley's 1818 novel Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus, where humanity creates something without truly knowing anything about it. In Jurassic Park, scientist Henry Wu is unable to name the things that he creates, which alludes to Victor Frankenstein not knowing what to call his flawed imitation of God's creation. The immorality of these actions lead to human destruction, echoing Frankenstein.

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Tweak: Growing Up on Methamphetamines is a 2008 memoir by Nic Sheff about his methamphetamine addiction. Tweak was published concurrently with Beautiful Boy, a memoir by Nic’s father, David Sheff about his son’s addiction. From Tweak’s official summary: “Nic Sheff was drunk for the first time at age eleven. In the years that followed, he would regularly smoke pot, do cocaine and Ecstasy, and develop addictions to crystal meth and heroin. Even so, he felt like he would always be able to quit and put his life together whenever he needed to. It took a violent relapse one summer in California to convince him otherwise. In a voice that is raw and honest, Nic spares no detail in telling us the compelling, heartbreaking, and true story of his relapse and the road to recovery. As we watch Nic plunge into the mental and physical depths of drug addiction, he paints a picture for us of a person at odds with his past, with his family, with his substances, and with himself. It's a harrowing portrait--but not one without hope.”

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Going Postal is a 2004 fantasy novel by British writer Terry Pratchett, the 33rd book in his Discworld series. From Wikipedia: “Unlike most of Pratchett's Discworld novels, Going Postal is divided into chapters, a feature previously seen only in Pratchett's children's books and the Science of Discworld series. These chapters begin with a synopsis of philosophical themes, in a similar manner to some Victorian novels and, notably, to Jules Verne stories. The title refers to both the contents of the novel and the idiom 'going postal'. The story takes place in Ankh-Morpork, a powerful city-state on Discworld. The protagonist of the story is Moist von Lipwig, a skilled con artist who was to be hanged for his crimes, but saved at the last moment by the cunning and manipulative Patrician Havelock Vetinari, who has Moist's death on the scaffold faked, being hanged "to within half an inch of your life".

A Tale for the Time Being is a 2013 metafictional novel by Ruth Ozeki. The novel is narrated by two characters: a sixteen-year-old Japanese American girl (Nao) living in Tokyo who keeps a diary, and a Japanese American writer (Ruth) living on an island off the coast of British Columbia, who finds Nao’s diary washed ashore some time after the 2011 tsunami that devastated Japan. Ruth reads her diary and becomes heavily invested in her narrative, and in finding out Nao's fate. Ruth feels a strong connection to Nao and yearns to locate her in the real world to affirm her wellbeing. From The New York Times Sunday Book Review: “Many of the elements of Nao’s story — schoolgirl bullying, unemployed suicidal ‘salarymen,’ kamikaze pilots […] in Nao’s telling, refracted through Ruth’s musings, they become fresh and immediate, occasionally searingly painful. Ozeki takes on big themes in A Tale for the Time Being — not just the death of individuals but also the death of the planet. In doing so, she ranges widely, drawing in everything from quantum mechanics and the theory of infinite possibilities in an infinite number of universes to the teachings of the 13th-century Zen master Dogen Zenji. There’s even a crow with possibly magical powers. All are drawn into the stories of two ‘time beings,’ Ruth and Nao, whose own fates are inextricably bound.”

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The Lord of the Rings is an epic high fantasy novel written by the English author and scholar J. R. R. Tolkien. From Wikipedia: “Set in Middle-earth, the story began as a sequel to Tolkien's 1937 children's book The Hobbit, but eventually developed into a much larger work. The work was written in stages between 1937 and 1949, For economic reasons, it was first published over the course of a year, from 29 July 1954 to 20 October 1955, in three volumes rather than one, under the titles The Fellowship of the Ring, The Two Towers, and The Return of the King; The Silmarillion appeared only after Tolkien's death. The work is divided internally into six books, two per volume, with several appendices of chronologies, genealogies, and linguistic information. These three volumes were later published as a boxed set in 1957, and finally as a single volume in 1968, following Tolkien's original intent.

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Challenger Deep is a 2015 young adult novel by Neal Shusterman about a teenager's onset of schizophrenia. Publisher's Weekly gave the book a starred review, writing: "With lyricism and potent insight, Shusterman traces the schizophrenic descent and return of Caden Bosch, an intelligent 15-year-old and a gifted artist. His internal narratives are sometimes dreams, sometimes hallucinations, and sometimes undefinable, dominated by a galleon and its captain, sailing with an enormous, sullen crew to the deepest point of the Marianas Trench, Challenger Deep. The metaphor’s not exactly subtle, but Shusterman finds unexpected resonance in its details—the tarry seams in the wood, the human ballast. External reality still registers: people around Caden run the gamut of humor, scolding, threats, and avoidance to pressure him into changing behavior he no longer controls. Shusterman has mined personal experience of mental illness with his son Brendan, whose line drawings mirror Caden’s fragmentation in swirling lines eerily reminiscent of Van Gogh. It’s a powerful collaboration, and crucial to the novel’s credibility. As Caden says, “There is no such thing as a ‘correct’ diagnosis,” and though his story doesn’t necessarily represent a “typical” experience of mental illness, it turns symptoms into lived reality in ways readers won’t easily forget."

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The Bone Queen is a 2016 fantasy novel by Alison Croggon. From the book's official summary: "After being seduced into sorcery by an agent of the Dark, the promising Bard Cadvan of Lirigon recklessly unleashed the terrible Bone Queen, bringing destruction down upon Annar. Cast out of the Schools of Barding for his crime, Cadvan now lives in exile, burdened by memories of his dealings with the Dark. At his former home, Cadvan’s mentor, Nelac, and his rival, Dernhil, begin to suspect that the Bone Queen may yet lurk in Annar, and a young Bard named Selmana is plagued by an ominous presence and an unsettling new ability to step between worlds. With darkness gathering and Bards giving in to fear and paranoia, a guilt-ridden Cadvan must once again earn the Bards’ trust and Selmana must gain control of her newfound powers if they are to bring peace to the living and the dead. Fans of the Books of Pellinor will savor this glimpse into Cadvan’s past, and readers new to Alison Croggon’s intricately built world will relish The Bone Queen as a stand-alone epic of light, dark, magic, and redemption."