Two fascinating books I've read that deal with the topic are "Genetic
Takeover and the Mineral Origins of Life" by A.G. Cairns-Smith and
"Origins of Order: Self-Organization and Selection in Evolution" by
Stuart Kauffman.
Cairns-Smith suggests that the molecular uniformity we see now (not
just the ubiquity of DNA/RNA, but the rigidly enforced chirality
[left/right handedness] of all the basic building blocks [amino acids,
sugars, nucleotides, etc.]) is an artifact of what he calls "genetic
takeover"--where a previous information-storage system (which he
surmises might have involved surface chemistry in certain clays) serves
as "scaffolding" to set up another one (DNA/RNA in this case), and then
disappears as it is outcompeted by its progeny.
Kauffman investigates a more fundamental principle of complex systems
that he believes "preadapts" them to developing autocatalytic systems
like life.
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