I was thinking the same thing about music videos. Growing up, my parents didn't allow television in the house, but one of my friends had MTV and it strongly shaped the person that I eventually became.
The most important video in shaping me was without any doubt Mix-a-Lot's Baby Got Back, which more or less completely altered the way that I viewed attractiveness. I grew up in a white-bread suburb with white-bread media and white-bread social norms. There were a million different things that no one ever actually came out and said, but that were simply assumed. White girls were prettier than darker girls, and blondes were the prettiest of all. There was an equal and inverse relationship between the number of pounds a girl weighed, and how attractive she was. Nobody told me these things, but at the same time, everybody told me these things.
The video for Baby Got Back was, for me, on par with Jesus throwing all of the moneychangers out of the temple. Mix-a-Lot denounced the foul lies that had been told to me my entire life. He freed me to understand that there were other forms of beauty, and they were equally valid. He caused me to question everything that I had ever been told, and examine it with a critical focus.
Also, he rapped on top of a giant ass.
The other extremely influential video of my youth was, embarrassingly enough, Billy Idol's Rock the Cradle, which is directly responsible for my moving out of the suburbs and into the city. When I grow up, I told myself, I'm going to move to the city, and the hot girl next door is going to come over and dance, and then she'll spill wine on her shirt and she'll have to take it off, and then we'll make out while Billy Idol watches us. Life's going to be like that all the time.
And so far, it has been.
This book is also full of surprises. After all, who would expect that a Sears catalogue can change your life? Michael Stern explains how it can. Chef Jacques Pépin writes about cooking and Camus, an odd pairing that makes sense, once you read his essay.
Each writer presents insights on their meaningful book that makes you want to rush right out and get a copy to read yourself. And indeed, the editors of the book, Coady and Johannessen, include even more titles in the back for recommended reading (and strongly suggest that you also read the works written by the book's contributors).
Reading this book made me reflect on books that changed my life, and renewed my motivation for writing. It was also a pleasure to read essays from some of my favorite authors, and be introduced to other authors as well. This book is recommended to every bibliophile who wants to be reacquainted with old favorites, and find some new ones.