Michael Crichton's Gift to Literature

You may never glimpse Michael Crichton's marble bust in the hallowed halls of the Western Canon, but the late thriller author was not without his contributions to literature. "I will always owe him a major debt," Maxim Jakubowski writes in The Guardian. "Thanks to him, my son began to read books." Those who snub their noses at Crichton should take note: "I am convinced that there is a whole generation of young boys out there, like mine, who discovered through Crichton that novels can be fun and exciting, and became fervent readers thanks to him. In an age when fewer and fewer children bother about books, I believe we must be mightily grateful to Michael Crichton for keeping the flame of reading alive."