I have read The Vital Question, after hearing about it from BillG's blog. And it did blew me away. I immediately read also Oxygen, by same author, and I found it equally interesting (it goes in more detail on some topics, but some of the ideas in Oxygen are superseded by his later books).

If you can spare an hour, I recommend this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UGxAB4Weq0U . Is made by the author and it covers the ideas of life origin exposed in The Vital Question.

Also interesting his paper on the double-agent theory of aging: http://www.nick-lane.net/double-agent%20theory.pdf